When a teacher teaches well, students want to attend. When a teacher teaches poorly, students don’t want to attend. But when a system requires students to be there regardless, then that terrible teacher is definitely not going to care enough to change their way of teaching.



This is why it becomes important protest mandatory attendance requirements: because your administrators need to hold up their part of the bargain in terms of getting teachers who can teach.

3. Because real learning doesn’t just happen in the classroom

Think back to your first major term paper. Not that one which you copied from your seniors, but the one you actually cared about. The one where you decided to do actual research and legwork. Late nights were spent at the library (or, realistically, on Wikipedia), early mornings in the photocopy room getting notes. Weekends were spent out in the field, meeting people or gathering data.

What part of that process happened in the classroom?

One of the goals of a university is to generate research and study issues and problems linked directly and indirectly to the world around us. The reality is that most university campuses in India are located significantly far away from where these problems are happening.

If I’m a student in Delhi currently studying the issue of farmer suicides in Haryana, how can I get an actual ground reality picture when I can’t go visit a farmland area further than 2 hours from my university out of fear of missing out on attendance?

Or, more worryingly, what happens when I now deliberately decide to only study topics which allow me to be physically on campus?

Many Indian universities recognise that at least at the post-graduate level, attendance makes no sense because of this exact reason. If your university doesn’t subscribe to that logic, ask yourself (or better yet, ask your administrators): why not?

4. Because attendance is just one part of a larger problem of control

Fighting against the rules is a big ask, especially when enforced by a body or institution that has a direct hold on your entire future. It becomes even harder when they’ve been the norm for such a long time. Add to that the bevy of family and friends all telling you to not risk your degree, to just sit tight and move on out when you’re done with your two/three/four years of study, and you have a fairly compelling case to just keep your head down.