[stedaniels]

I'm not sure if you are in the industry, but attendance tracking is high up on most institutions lists of metrics to track. Aside from helping out the usual back office data, it's often a key indicator for students who are in trouble. The institution can then reach out and assist these students.

[tastroder]

They might just not be from the US. Here in Germany, tracking or forcing student attendance is subject of large discussions and generally often frowned upon (or forbidden by regulation) in the University setting these days.

[stedaniels]

This is mind boggling. Failing someone for missing one or two classes is ludicrous, but giving someone a certificate who didn't engage with the course is equally so. University education isn't about the destination/exam it's about the journey.

[tastroder]

Not sure why you'd think that not tracking attendance means that people do not attend. Pure attendance does not guarantee good performance and in filled lecture halls there's often not much to "engage" with anyhow.

We see this as academic freedom, if you miss out on in-person seminars you won't pass, if you do not go to some lecture because you have to work and teach yourself afterwards, who cares.

[malaxii]

This is a common practice in Europe as I understand, not just Germany.

The thinking as I understand it goes along these lines: there are requirements to get a degree (thesis, pass exams, score high enough in exercises), but the university is primarily a center for learning and you are an adult, so how you achieve the abilities to fulfill the requirements is your own business. If you want to do things on your own, you are free to do so.

[Fronzie]

Also, it is seen as a test by itself: Are you capable to take your responsibility and do your work?

This is a quite valuable lesson by itself. Most people need a few months to learn it (partying is fun, but doesn't get you a degree), some don't and indeed drop out.

[aianus]

> University education isn't about the destination/exam it's about the journey.

Showing up for lectures is by far the least important part of the journey. It's a passive activity that usually adds zero value versus watching lessons on YouTube or reading the textbook.

The real learning (IMO) is in doing the assignments, networking with people in your residence, social activities, internships, etc.

[chacha2]

A degree is a class signifier, its only value is that it costs.

Most degrees you'll have to teach yourself and then when you graduate you get to advertise that you were willing to submit mindlessly to the system and do as you were told. Both of which are very valuable to employees.

[Silhouette]

University education isn't about the destination/exam it's about the journey.

There are more paths to the final destination than just turning up to all of your lectures, particularly if a lecturer is not doing a good job of presenting the material.

One of the controversial issues here in the UK at the moment is how much students are now paying for their university fees compared to how much value the university offers in return. Governments over the past generation or so have turned undergraduate degrees into a much more commercial proposition: you're taking on a lot of debt, but you're leaving with (in theory, according to the marketing brochure) much better career prospects.

At the same time, advances in technology and communications are rendering obsolete the old school lectures where you turn up and transfer the lecturer's notes from their paper to yours without passing through either brain along the way. You can find some of the best presentations of subjects ever given in freely available videos online today. Manually transcribing notes (or typing them on your laptop, or whatever) is largely a waste of time when you can just download well-written notes and spend your time in a lecture actually concentrating on understanding the material. For many courses, you really need to look at multiple sources anyway, to avoid getting tied up with a single view of the subject or a single expert's personal style of presentation and notation.

So if you said to a typical UK undergraduate today that the most important thing about their university journey was to attend all of their lectures, even when they're being phoned in by some researcher who is simultaneously daydreaming about their latest funding application, I don't think many people would agree with you.

[pbhjpbhj]

You can get much more out of Uni but IMO a degree certificate is, and should only be, a measure of ability to complete the stated academic requirements.

[rocqua]

I think OPs point was about using attendance as part of assessment.

[TazeTSchnitzel]

In the UK, I think universities have to track attendance if only to make the immigration authorities happy.

[red_admiral]

Yes, it's part of the conditions to be a sponsor of "Tier 4" (student) visas.