Written by: Shivangi Sharma
5 min readJan 21, 2023 12:20 PM IST
First published on: Jan 21, 2023 at 12:20 PM IST
Mohammed Anikh, a 19-year-old student in Chennai, died by suicide recently. He was barred from sitting for exams due to low attendance. His parents allege that the distress of not being allowed to take his exams forced him to take his own life. Multiple students from renowned institutions like IIT Madras and Amity University over the past years have died by suicide, allegedly due to the same reason. This raises a critical question about the necessity and validity of these requirements.
The argument goes that these requirements give students an incentive to sit in class and not waste their parents’ money. I strongly disagree. These statements merely guilt students into subscribing to a system that is not concerned with their mental health and well-being.
In conversation with my peers from institutes like BITS Pilani where there is no attendance policy, I’ve learnt that not only do classes still have decent strength, but the lack of an attendance policy does not affect the passing or failing of students in their examinations. Education is imparted in a holistic manner, and classes are not empty.
Regardless of whether the minimum attendance criteria is 70 per cent or 85 per cent, there is no proof that sitting in class and maintaining attendance will necessarily lead to knowledge acquisition. A student who attends all her classes but barely engages in discussions is in no way benefitting from earning the minimum percentage given for meeting the attendance requirement. All she earns is a pass to sit for examinations.
Professors also sometimes threaten to mark students absent for reasons that aren’t remotely related to attendance. I’m a college student, and I’ve been told on multiple occasions that my inability to answer a question correctly will cost me my attendance, even if I’m very much present in class. My peers have had their attendance suffer for not answering when prompted, being as much as one minute late to class, and even accidentally forgetting to bring a textbook to lectures. Colleges are conditioning students into thinking that this is a fair penalty when it is simply a tool to threaten students.
Colleges also, in general, do not accept mental health issues as good enough reasons for medical leave. These institutes fail to take into account that people dealing with such problems may not be in a position to afford a diagnosis. Most college students survive on their parents’ money and cannot get a diagnosis on a limited budget without their parent’s knowledge. It is a separate task to get parents on board because the stigma around mental health persists.
Such a rigid system only forces students to find loopholes, sometimes in questionable ways. They forge medical certificates because the college won’t take their actual mental health issues into consideration. Right before the attendance review, these students go from one faculty member to another, asking them to “grant” them attendance. It’s dishonest work for both the students as well as professors. Why must such an arbitrary system exist?
The impulse to dodge the system also comes from a fear of repercussions. My institute penalises us for having “low attendance” by asking us to submit handwritten assignments worth 1,000 to 1,500 words, merely two to three days before examinations are to begin. These “assignments” are not even spared a glance by professors. Why is such a redundant penalty established in the first place, when neither the student nor the professor has anything to gain from the extra task?
Students are also paralysed by the fear of having to repeat courses while paying a hefty fee for the same.
Despite everything, this is what the attendance policy has become — a mere pass to sit for examinations concealed under the notion of “incentivising students to take classes and learn”, and a tool used as leverage against them.
If this incentive was working, students wouldn’t constantly be finding loopholes, and if this system was working, these students wouldn’t be forced to take desperate steps.
If I can legally make independent decisions regarding matters of marriage and child-bearing, I should be allowed to make decisions regarding something like attending classes too.
While I speak as a law student, this issue exists across disciplines. Whether in engineering, law, or medical institutes, students crumble under the pressure of a system that was never benefiting us in the first place.
The writer is a law student
There is no proof that sitting in class and maintaining attendance will necessarily lead to knowledge acquisition. (Express Photo/File) 
Share
