Should Class Attendance Be Required
Required class attendance is so common at colleges and universities that many teachers and even students themselves simply assume it is a good thing. In fact, required class attendance does more harm than good.
There are several reasons that teachers should not require attendance. First, rigid attendance policies do not benefit students' studies. For example, a student may have to give up a lecture which he finds important to his studies simply because of rigid attendance polices which is a contributing factor to his course performance. Second, the lectures of some teachers are not always constructive. A student should be allowed to decide for himself whether an in-class experience is worthwhile when his teacher merely repeats material from the textbook or wastes class time by telling irrelevant stories. Finally and most importantly, there is no proven correlation between attendance and performance in a course. A student may never miss a single attendance in a course, but it doesn't mean that he has acquired the knowledge of this course.
Required class attendance may secure one hundred percent attendance for a course, but it does not make much sense. (187 words)
