Numerous university students do not attend lessons.
I saw Andy once only in class, and never again. He argues that he could study on his own. He thus never shows up in classes. Andy’s case in fact is not exceptional. Skipping lessons is a common phenomenon within any universities. It is obvious to analyze the reasons behind. It is addictive for a student to skip lessons after he starts to skip his first lesson. Furthermore, numerous students with the habit of skipping lesson claim that they could study all things on their own. With relevance to those two reasons analyzed, I would like to suggest solutions which can effectively solve the problem of skipping lessons, in terms of carrying out attendance system and introducing a non-notes-oriented lesson format.
Academic comments the behavior of skipping lessons as an addictive phenomenon. When a student starts to skip one lesson, without being penalized, may continue to skip lessons because he finds that there is nothing wrong for not attending the lessons. Meanwhile, he may enjoy a relaxing semester. As a result, skipping lesson becomes a usual phenomenon which is regarded as an acceptable behavior among students.
University schooling emphasizes the concept of independent learning. Students may misunderstand that learning from professional is not useful. They may feel confident and being mature to handle all knowledge by themselves which are supposed to be taught by teachers. This idea is actually not rational. Even if we are mature, we may still encounter mistake and something confusing which we cannot tackle and explain ourselves. Attending lesson is a must to make concepts clear and make learning effective.
Taking record of attendance is the effective way to stimulate students who are addicted to skip lessons to resolve their wrong behavior. Penalty to some extent is a means to improve the degree of problematic behavior. Students may find the advantage of attending lessons under the compulsory system.
Another solution is not to provide notes to students for any subjects. Students would be encouraged to attend the lessons because the only way for them to learn is to listen what the teachers taught. Students would be cultivated to have good habits not to rely heavily on the notes, but instead focusing on what the teachers taught . Learning would therefore be effective to a great extent.
Skipping lesson sometimes is justified. But when it changes to be an addictive behavior, it is in all ways not acceptable since it imposes numerous bad influences to students. Thus we have set up some solutions to help the students not to be addicted to this behavior. Thus taking record of attendance and not providing notes to students are useful measures to tackle the problematic phenomenon.
Angus, Li Tsz Pui