Rote memorization should not be promoted as the basis of "learning" at any educational institution.
editToday as part of their curriculum, students are introduced to a particular concept by their teacher/lecturer. A test is then prepared to asses the student's understanding of the concept, and marks are granted. However, it seems marks are granted according to "how similar" is the student's answer to that in the memo prepared by the teacher/lecturer which, most of the time, a complete replica of a text extracted from a particular institutionally recommended book on the subject matter or even worse a replica of a "reusable" 8 year old question/memo rather than according to how the student has expressed his/her sense on the understanding of the core of the concept as it apply to the domain of discourse limited by the question. Most often than not, all questions making up the test are "replica" of ten years old subject matter questions/memos stored somewhere in the institution's repository of collections of study materials in digital format.
As a result, student resort to a collection of question/memo papers available to them in all possible format and memorise, question to answer, with with high prospects that such questions will form part of the oncoming test. [1] [2]