The course on Readiness

Blog Contribution by Tabassum Nadeem

When the Leadership Readiness course started, I was really skeptical after the first lecture that how the course would progress for which there was no reference book but Google. Sir Wali candidly admitted that the course of Leadership Readiness was as new for him as it was for us. However, he assured that we will jointly explore this relatively new and untapped field of Leadership Readiness and attain knowledge together. He also told us not to worry about the results and assured that everyone would get good marks as getting low marks have been difficult in his courses. As the course progressed I started enjoying the course. Sir Wali really made learning a fun for all by involving everyone in class and generated very interesting and thought provoking discussions. New ideas were generated and new concepts were evolved. Leadership Readiness became the favourite course for me and I always looked forward for the class; missing any class looked as if I would suffer an unrecoverable loss. As the course further progressed it became monotonous to some extent and nothing new would come up; every new idea / concept generated would revolve around the same readiness elements already discussed. However, lectures on Successor Readiness and e-Readiness again rejuvenated my interest and brought in new learning.

As the course neared its end, I found Sir Wali becoming a bit serious and starting to get irritated quickly; also the element of fun disappeared from his lectures. This all may be the result of our irresponsible and casual response towards the course and submission of assignments. However, towards the end of 14th lecture, while commenting on the group presentation found sir Wali in the same good mood; joke about the Pathan was good one.

Learning from Sir Wali has been an honour. He really made ‘a mountain out of a mole’ of the Leadership Readiness course. He has already joined the list of my most favourite teachers of my entire learning career.
The course also had some grey areas which may be kept in mind while conducting such courses in future. The course somewhat lacked planning and coordination which include: Hourly exam schedule; the exam was postponed without any reason and no new schedule was given due to which students suffered.

Assignment submission timings and their modes of submission; hardcopy or online remained ambiguous.
Individual presentations by students on the topics of their choice relating to readiness; only two lectures are remaining almost half of the students are still pending, neither the students volunteered themselves nor they were asked to finish off by certain dates. Moreover, if the individual presentations were also commented like the last group presentation, it would have made a great learning value for all and others would have also improved.

Sir Wali, while announcing the result of hourly exam mentioned that students did not take the course seriously and had the “thund programme”. I am surprised how this notion that class was having “thund programme”, it has really made the serious minded students very “dukhi”. The course was fully loaded with assignments such as book review, movie review, individual presentations and group paper and presentation and so on. It really required mid night oil burning to fulfill the course requirements. I would not deny that some students might have taken the course lightly but the blame of this “thund programme” cannot be attributed to all.
In the end, I don’t feel myself qualified enough to complement Sir Wali for conducting such an exceptional course, however, I must share that during my naval career I have attended many leadership courses, inland and abroad but none was at par with this course. The course involved every students in discussion, made them think and generate new ideas and concepts. The course had great learning value and now I feel myself a better leader.