No lectures at Yarmouk University on Thursdays under new decision

AMMAN — Yarmouk University students will attend lectures only four days a week as of the new academic year, a university official said Thursday.

Ahmad Ajlouni, the Irbid-based university’s vice president, said the decision was implemented during the summer semester as “a pilot phase and it was found reasonable”, which prompted the university’s administration to implement the decision for the upcoming semester.

Instead of distributing lectures over five days, they will be delivered over four days, and Thursdays will be allocated for exams, labs, thesis discussions and other activities, but no lectures, according to Ajlouni.

Employees will work on Thursday as normal without changes to their schedule, he said.

The official explained that when students have all their lectures over four days, their schedule will be busy with academic activities and this will reduce the possibility of being involved in brawls.

Last year, the university, where 39,000 students are enrolled, expelled several students for involvement in riots on campus in July.

The riots, which started out as a dispute between two groups of students from two districts in the north, involved masked students and outsiders with weapons, and resulted in damage to university property, injuries and spreading panic on campus, in addition to an attempt to take a student hostage.

Police intervened to contain the situation, which resulted in the injury of three people.

Ajlouni noted that this move will help students save money they spend on transport, with one less day to go to the university, some 80km north of Amman. In addition, it will reduce the university’s expenditures by saving electricity.

Last year, the university’s budget deficit stood at JD2 million. This year, the deficit depends on the government’s allocations for higher education institutions, according to Ajlouni.