“JNU should give everyone who joins a BA in Protesting.”
This was a friend’s response when I shared a few pictures from the ongoing protest against marking attendance on our WhatsApp group. I laughed along, because I totally get it. To most people, the current wave of agitations on the Jawaharlal Nehru University campus seem like a joke.
The Vice Chancellor’s December circular making it mandatory for all students (Bachelors, Masters, MPhil and Doctoral students alike) to have a minimum 75% attendance seems bizarre only to the minority of students from other institutions in India that don’t have such requirements already. The vast majority of college students in India have always existed in a system that requires mandatory attendance: either as a carrot (5% on your final grade just for showing up!) or as a stick (No attendance? No exam).
“We’re students, we’re supposed to attend classes.”
“Just get someone to proxy for you if you’re so bothered.”
“Stop wasting your time.”
These are just a few of the number of retorts I’ve gotten while trying to engage with friends, acquaintances, and strangers alike on this topic.
To those of you who share that view, I ask you this: What was it that ensured your presence in class? Not physically present, but mentally present?
Did the mandatory attendance requirement keep you from looking at your phones to pass time? Did it keep you engaged in the professor and the subject?
Did it get you to change your attitude about a subject you weren’t particularly keen on, possibly enough to start looking into studying outside of class time?
The best universities the world over do not have mandatory attendance requirements; at most they leave it up to the teachers to decide their own grading systems. In this, like in many other educational issues, India has refused to modernize. Now my University, one of the few that adopted this progressive approach of treating college students with maturity, is taking a few steps backward; in response, we’re doing what we’re known to do best. We’re protesting.
Here’s why you should too:
1. Because we are responsible for our own time
Think back to a compulsory course that you had, one that you had practically zero interest in. You’re required to attend most lectures no matter what, or risk not being able to sit for the end-semester exam. How quickly does your interest wane in the actual content of what the teacher is talking about?
Now, what if you had a choice in how you wanted to attend this class? If you could choose to skip the class and use your time (arguably the most valuable resource you as a young adult have) on furthering your interests outside the classroom?
It’s insulting to assume that the alternative to attending a class is wasting time.
Despite all efforts by our parents to delay the growing-up process, we’re (more or less) adults. We’re supposed to be able to take a look at our time and decide if it’s worth skipping a class to go work on another assignment, or read in the library, or prepare for an upcoming exam, or go for a walk, or attend a debate, or sleep in. We’re supposed to be old enough to know the consequences of not attending a class, and the difficulty in playing catch-up on the information in our own time. If we’re not trusted with the ability to make such choices now, then what happens later?
2. Because teachers need to know when they’re terrible
Think back to your favourite professor. The one that took these large, unwieldy concepts and broke them down till you finally understood it. The ones that refused to move on from a topic until all questions, great and small, were answered.
What kept you attending their class? How much of their class do you remember?
Now think back to your least favourite professor. The one that mumbled, or refused to answer questions, or thought teaching meant reading their lecture notes aloud.
How much of their class do you remember?
More importantly, what incentive does the terrible professor have to change their teaching style if they’re getting a full house anyway?
Mandatory attendance requirements are a great way to hide the reality that many teachers at the higher-education level in India can’t teach.
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.
Mandatory attendance is never questioned because it’s the norm at most Indian universities, like dress codes and gender segregation and hostel in-timings. But that’s exactly why it should be questioned.
We’re a nation founded on the idea of protest. We’re meant to be argumentative. At the very least, we should be willing to question these basic “fundamentals” and see whether they’re worth holding on to.
The next time you attend a class that you really don’t want to be in just because you’ll be penalised if you won’t, reflect on why that is.
The next time you’re in a lecture with a teacher who can’t teach, ask yourself why you’re being forced to listen to them anyway.
The next time you’re unable to pursue an area of study or an extra-curricular in an environment meant to enable you to do just that, think about what that is.
We’re protesting against marking attendance, and we hope that soon, you will too.
The author's name has been changed to protect their identity.