Is mandatory class attendance really necessary for higher education?

In contrast, University Grants Commission (UGC) regulations stipulate that “the minimum number of lectures, tutorials, seminars and practicals which a student shall be required to attend for eligibility to appear at the examination shall be prescribed by the university, which ordinarily shall not be less than 75% of the total.” 

Most universities follow these regulations but are also known to make exemptions to the rule.

The rule is controversial because it is not evident that it exists for the benefit of students. 

It is also not clear why the threshold is 75% and why the penalty for the student is nothing less than being disallowed to sit for the examination and lose a year. 

Neither the UGC nor universities provide a rationale. Further, there is a near-absence of India-specific research.

In mid-2024, while hearing a suo motu public interest litigation (PIL) filed after a law student at Amity University died by suicide in 2017 on being disallowed to take exams, the Delhi high court noted that education was no longer confined to classroom teaching and textbooks, and that there was a need to re-evaluate attendance norms. 

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The court reasoned that “global practices followed by leading educational institutions around the world” would “need to be analysed to see whether mandatory attendance requirements are even required.”

The courts have not always been considerate. In 2020, the Supreme Court and earlier the Bombay high court dismissed petitions filed by students of Mithibai College, Mumbai, to relax the 75% attendance requirement; 551 students were affected.

There was only sparse research on the relationship between attendance and academic performance at the college level until the 1990s. 

However, growing absenteeism prompted more interest, especially after a 1993 article by economist David Romer, ‘Do Students Go to Class? Should They?’ 

Romer found that absenteeism was rampant in American classrooms, with about a third of students typically absent; attendance had a positive impact on student grades. 

Thus, Romer noted that “steps to increase attendance, including making attendance mandatory, may deserve serious consideration.”

Subsequent research, primarily on American and European universities, indicates that attendance has a positive impact on student grades, though there are quibbles over how much. 

But there are some studies that find attendance not to matter in any significant way or at all. 

It is also disputed whether it is attendance per se or student engagement in class that improves performance.

Despite the evidence, for a variety of reasons, notably student and faculty autonomy, most Western universities do not require mandatory attendance. Typically, they provide attendance guidelines for their faculty and leave it to them to decide.

Such autonomy is unthinkable in India, where the UGC’s shadow looms large and the autonomy of universities, faculty and students is far more limited. 

Yet, and despite the 75% attendance requirement, absenteeism is astonishingly high. 

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In October, the Bombay high court asked Mumbai University to respond to a PIL initiated by a faculty member Sharmila Ghuge demanding enforcement of the 75% attendance rule. 

According to Ghuge, attendance in many law colleges is between 0 and 30%. The situation is no different at many other institutions across the country. 

While mandatory attendance requirements are in place, they are routinely sidelined or manipulated.

There are a common set of reasons for widespread absenteeism: student attitudes, course content, its difficulty, the quality of instruction, the ease of access to information and others. 

In the Indian context, the convenient answer is that students are immature, lack discipline or do not know better. 

Perhaps the more accurate answer is that students know better: that they can pass a course or even do quite well without attending lectures. Or that they consider many of their courses irrelevant.

Mandatory attendance policies have some vocal critics. 

Varan Sahni, a former vice-chancellor of Goa University and University of Jammu, is of the view that mandatory attendance regulations only benefit “incompetent and/or indifferent teachers.” 

Dheeraj Sanghi, vice-chancellor of J. K. Lakshmipat University, is also unconvinced of the need for mandatory attendance and believes that “the punishment for missing a few boring classes is very harsh with no consequence whatsoever to the teacher who delivered those boring lectures.”

Still, it may be a bit too radical to throw out mandatory attendance entirely. Instead, some changes could be considered.

First, the 75% threshold is quite high. Why not lower the threshold—perhaps 50%—and enforce it more strictly?

Second, the punishment for failing the requirement is cruel. 

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If its supporters really believe that attendance affects academic performance, they should be confident that the grades of absentee students will suffer, which is an adequate and well-deserved punishment. 

So, why not consider other penalties, such as compulsory on-campus volunteering or community service, in compensation for missed lectures?

The author is director, The International Centre, Goa.