Some people hold the opinion that
requiring university students to attend classes is much better than
leave it optional for students in many ways. Others, however , contradict
obliging students to be in the class. Personally, I would prefer
not having to go to school every day and attend every class because I think that
keeping class attendance a free option has more advantages.
There are numerous reasons why
keeping class attendance a free option is better for students, and I would in here explain a few of the most important ones.
The main reason is that different students have different capabilities and different needs for class teaching. It can be given a concrete example.
Suppose you registered a calculus course, and the content of this course is too easy for you so that you can study at home and cost much less time completing the same progress. In this situation, it is a better choice being absent from the class and that saves a lot of time. Another reason why I advocate the attitude of leaving class attendance optional is that in Taiwan, there is a great lack of student dormitories, causing that some student must travel long distance to the school or afford high rent in the metropolis areas. Take the case of a thing that if I live in keelung, a satellite city of Taipei, and attend National Taiwan University. There will be no room in the dormitory available for me. I have to take the bus and spend over an hour to get to school or pay about 1,500 USD per month to rent a tiny room in Taipei. And it's better for me to reduce the days per week which I go to the school and keep up with the class using the Internet remote teaching system at home.
One very strong argument for
optional attendance is that
there exist a customer and server relationship between students and the school. This demonstrates the undeniable fact that
we paid school fees in order to register courses, in the meantime we obtain the right to be in the class as well as to be absence. Professors have no right to judge one's grade upon the attendance record. Of course,
to require students to attend class also has advantages to some extent,
such as to help lazy students not being flunked, or to improve relationship during interaction between students and professors. But if all these factors are contemplated, the advantages of
"attendance as a option" carry more weight than those of
"attendance as an obligation." From what has been discussed above, we may finally draw the conclusion that
it is the better way to keep class attendance a free option rather than an obligation.
