Leave us kids alone, say college students opposing roll call

Colleges insist on attendance; students argue it’s unfair to force them to attend ‘dull’ lectures

As the educational institutes in the city take firm steps to enforce the minimum 75% attendance that is required in an academic year, students are becoming discontent with the mandatory attendance policy.

Last week, students from Institute of Chemical Technology, Matunga, made headlines when they creatively exploited loopholes in the institute’s biometric attendance system to mark themselves present even when they didn’t attend classes.

“Some lecturers are terrible teachers. They simply read from a presentation. There’s no point attending a lecture if one doesn’t learn anything,” said a Btech student from ICT.

Not amused, the ICT authorities decided to punish around 200 students by cutting two credit points from their final score. Justifying the institute’s action, its vice-chancellor GD Yadav said, “We are very strict with attendance. In the past, we have rusticated students who didn’t meet the minimum attendance mark.”

Mumbai colleges say they are strict about attendence rates because it mandatory for every student to meet a minimum stan- dard. While the colleges insist that the policy is indispensable for learning, students argue that forcing them to sit through dull lectures is counterproductive.

Sachin Pawar, a student from New Law College and president of Students Law Council, a citybased students group, suggests that when most of the colleges don’t have sufficient number of qualified, full-time teachers, expecting students to attend lectures is unfair. “Instead of making attendance compulsory, why don’t the colleges fulfil the needs of the students?” he said.

Principals feel that many students use the “poor lecture” argument as an excuse to miss classes. “There are very few students who don’t attend the lectures for genuine reasons. Majority of students who are against mandatory attendance don’t even bother to sit through lectures.,” said Madhavi Pethe, principal Dahanukar College, Vile Parle.

Nevertheless, principals concede that mandatory attendance should go with more engaging lectures. “If you are making attendance compulsory the delivery of lecture has to be meaningful. We should be strict with teachers too,” said Lily Bhushan, principal, Shroff College, adding that the college has taken efforts to make lectures more engaging.

Despite these measures, some students said that making them sit for lectures out of fear of attendance is not the right approach. “Plenty of research papers indicate that forcing students to attend lectures doesn’t work,” said a member of ICT student body.