Some professors and students know this feeling well: you walk into your class only to find that only a handful of other people have shown up.

It's a situation Memorial University undergraduate student Johnathon Adams is very familiar with.

"Oh, all of the time. Yeah. All of the time," Adams said.

"I've been to MUN classes too where there's, like, maybe 10 people in the class out of, like, 50."

According to geography department head Norm Catto, this problem has been getting worse at Memorial over the last few years.

Ultimately, the only people who are harmed by poor attendance are the people who are not attending. - Norm Catto

"It is true that in recent years attendance has not been as good as we would like it to be," said Catto, though he added that the school does not officially take attendance.

"It is a frustrating situation. We do our best, but it's just like going to a concert. If a person buys a ticket and doesn't show up, the concert then goes ahead. It's the same way in terms of lecturing."

Norm Catto, head of MUN's geography department at MUN, says class attendance is getting worse as years go by. (Paula Gale/CBC)

As far as Catto is concerned, the onus is on the students.

"It's really a problem for the students rather than for professors," he said.

"Ultimately, the only people who are harmed by poor attendance are the people who are not attending."

A shared responsibility

Hannah Mekawi, an undergraduate political science student, has a different perspective.

"If you're really that worried about people not going to class, I think that's a 'you' problem, you know?" Mekawi said.

More students are going to come to class when the professor enjoys what they're teaching, versus those who just show up and read out the material, she said.

'There are professors that don’t care as much as they could,' says Hannah Mekawi, a political science student at Memorial. (Noah Laybolt/CBC)

"I'm not expecting every single prof to, like, spoon-feed their students. But you can kind of tell that a lot of them are just tired. And if you're tired, I'm tired," she said.

"But I'm paying you to teach me something — so if you're just gonna be there, like, 'Well, this is political science,' I'm not gonna go."

Mekawi says she's noticed what she says is a trend in class instruction, where professors do not seem to be engaged in their lectures.

If I feel like if I'm obliged and I literally have to, then there is no other way. And I would actually attend the class. - Karim Khalifa

"I've been in a class, and it was a first-year political science class, and the professor was so boring," she said.

"We'd just be sitting in the back doing our own thing like drawing, playing video games very quietly, because everything he said was posted directly onto Tophat [a paid app that tracks student attendance]. All he'd do was stand there and read off of the PowerPoint."

One possible solution: mandatory attendance

But not every student shares Mekawi's sentiments. Undergraduate student Karim Khalifa says a sweeping change has to happen to improve class attendance.

In that day's math class, for example, less than half the enrolled students appeared to be present compared with the number in the room on the first day of the course, Khalifa said.

Karim Khalifa says enforced mandatory attendance is the only solution for low attendance in universities. (Noah Laybolt/CBC)

Mandatory attendance, where students have to attend at least three-quarters of the classes in order to pass, is one potential solution to the problem, he said.

"I'm even a person who doesn't attend class very often, but if I feel like if I'm obliged and I literally have to, then there is no other way," Khalifa said.

"And I would actually attend the class."

But Catto said mandatory attendance is out of the question.

MUNSU's Liam O'Neill disagrees with the idea of mandatory attendance. (Jeremy Eaton/CBC)

"It's not permitted," he said.

"Under the current system that we have at MUN, we have discussions that the student union, MUNSU, has participated in. The consensus is that we don't want to take attendance and so at the moment, it's not permitted."

Mandatory attendance creates barriers

Liam O'Neill, a spokesperson for Memorial's student union, wasn't working with MUNSU when the discussions about attendance were happening — but he understands the sentiment behind the desire not to make attendance mandatory.

"I mean, think about your own life — have you never had a situation where you had a doctor's appointment to go to during class time? Or maybe a relative you never get to see is home, this one day?" O'Neill said.

"Things come up in life. There's students with children and sometimes life gets in the way, you gotta go take care of them."

Strict rules around attendance would create more barriers to people getting their education, he said.

It's atypical for a mandatory attendance rule to be enforced in a university. When reached for comment about how the University of Toronto handles attendance, a spokesperson said the school doesn't have a university-wide attendance policy.

"Different divisions have their own policies, and instructors may post a requirement in their syllabus."

Catto said it doesn't matter how many students are actually present for his class — he proceeds with the lesson regardless of attendance.

"If less than the full number of people show up in class, then I still have an obligation to teach to those that are there."

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