Attendance system ruins the purpose of learning

Every academic institution has certain rules. Rules which students have to follow and rules which teachers too have to. After all, they are also employees. Like all fingers are not equal, it is impossible to find all students same characteristically. There are a bunch of them who are motivated and serious towards studies while the majority believe in the 'last-minute studies'. The latter would prefer not attending classes regularly and study the syllabus on their own.

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In India, majority of the colleges lay stress on the attendance. 75% or 80% varies from college to college and course to course. Here at my college, it varies from course to course. But how many of you would agree with the righteousness of this attendance system? Let me highlight some aspects which may reveal how this has affected and may affect the lives of the student.

One of my friends is into core research work. He likes to wake up till morning hours exploring the world of knowledge. I have never seen him wasting his time in unscrupulous activities. But because of the weird time he sleeps, he misses most of the classes. His attendance has never been over 30% in any of the course, yet he outscores anybody and everybody whose attendance is even cent percent.

When investigated by the teachers, he laid down his problem. He was advised to change his routine otherwise he would have to be debarred from giving examinations. But his view point was that he could concentrate best in the night hours when there is no noise and disruptions. He had to changed his routine unwillingly and he ruined his exams and probably the habit of exploration.

A first year guy had 74% attendance in a subject and yet he was the top scorer till second terminal exams. But he was 1% short so was debarred and forced to give supplementary exams where the best grade one can score is a D (just pass). Imagine!

There are numerous such incidents which teachers and authorities don't realize but by which they ruin the careers and lives of students. On an average, about 15 minutes are wasted in a class of 50 minutes for attendance purpose. How so ever worse the teacher teaches, he/she is the best in inflicting short attendance and debarred punishments. It is this regular unwanted attendance drama that initiate the 'proxy' culture and is the start of the unfair affairs popping into the student's minds.

The faculty would arise the question - why don't they attend the classes? It is just because the teachers fail to build the interest in the course and in the class. There are certainly many teachers whom you force yourself to listen to. Because you know you will gain a lot by them. But then you also know you would be wasting your precious one hour by sitting idly in other classes where you can't understand a thing. You would prefer to study that from the book and still score good marks, so what is the need of such a teacher?

I feel everyone is a genius in himself. So the purpose of teacher pertains to just imparting his knowledge to us which would save us time going through numerous texts which the teacher has already been through. Since reading takes much more time than listening, the teachers shortens the time taken to learn. But if he/she fails to do this, there is no point wasting your time.

I have noticed the teachers who force attendance, uniform, discipline, etc. are those who themselves lack in quality knowledge. These parameters are just to show their superiority. But, there are teachers who would not care about your attendance, yet students will have it 100%, because they like to listen to them.

A deep research in this field shows that teachers are not completely to blame. They themselves are irritated by this regulation. It is the authority who is responsible. The authority is the employer of the teachers, so even they become subjugated. But then, a grade B teacher is always apprehensive about his job. A good teacher will only care for the learning of a person.

So the sole purpose of this article is to raise the voice against some of these unwanted activities by the authorities and rather ask the teachers to sharpen their teaching skills and rouse interest in the students' minds for the course. I am sure no one likes to miss classes if he gets something worth out of it.