Article: Universities shouldn’t force students to attend classes
The quality of education and, as a consequence, students’ knowledge and understanding of university level subjects dramatically diminish throughout the time. This causes educational institutions as well as federal departments of education to think about how they can improve the quality of students’ knowledge. One of the first questions which comes to everybody’s mind is whether students should be forced to attend lectures or not. Japan and USA are the examples of those countries where attending classes is mandatory for all students. In my opinion, this requirement is very straightforward and should be seriously reconsidered. First of all, every person ought to know that university is not a school or a kindergarten and that it takes a lot of time and effort to successfully receive a degree. Students choose to attend university themselves, so they must know how to manage enough time for studying as well as understand what type of studying is appropriate for them. Otherwise, if students aren’t able to do it, they are not yet ready for the university education or they probably don’t need it. These people must be expelled from a university so they will not distract other students. This behavior doesn’t differ from the one that is necessary at most of the jobs: most of the time, the employee has a task to fulfill and the employer doesn’t give him the list of instructions of how to manage this problem, but expect his employee to solve the problem no matter what. If the person doesn’t fulfill his duties, he will be dismissed. Students are considered to be adults, so they have to follow the same rules. It relates not only to the education in general but also to exams, finals, and projects in particular. If the person has not shown up, then the only solution is either to rate his work as F or, if the education system allows, to mark him as absent.
Second, even if the mentioned requirement works fine for lazy students, it may demotivate those students who are very productive and goal oriented, but who have their own pace. Moreover, the fact that a university lets students decide whether they want to visit classes or not shows that administration trusts its students, treat them as adults and expect them to behave appropriately.
Finally, so much attention to the student’s attendance may seem like a university is concentrated on the vision of hard work more than on actual education. This fact can make good students think about other universities.
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs
CC BY-NC-ND