Student Attendance Monitoring

There are two basic stakeholder viewpoints regarding student attendance monitoring at scheduled teaching sessions in modern Higher Education. These are that:

1. Modern HE students are mature and capable of making their own decisions about how to engage with their learning and their learning resources. The degree of flexibility and choice has been advanced considerably by the continued developments in institutional and personal technologies, and the primacy of the face-to-face taught session has been reduced as a result. The responsibilities that come with choice are seen to develop important personal core skills for the student. The consequence is that, from a learning point of view, the monitoring of student progress against learning goals has become more important than the monitoring of attendance at scheduled classes;
2. There is a requirement for HE institutions to monitor and report on student attendance to funding bodies and, for overseas students, to the UK Border Agency. Attendance monitoring is also a valuable component of the student support system that triggers action when lack of attendance indicates a problem. Attendance monitoring, particularly relating to whether a student has withdrawn from the course, is important as the information is used by the SLC to trigger the release of student loans and student fees. The consequence is that, from a management point of view,  there is a requirement for institutions to report on the attendance status of students and this is currently achieved by monitoring attendance at scheduled classes.

It is clear that student attendance monitoring for legal and financial accountability purposes is essential. However, the changes in teaching and learning practice, driven by the continuing emergence of new supportive technologies, are making face-to-face attendance monitoring increasingly inappropriate as the sole measure of learning engagement.
In practice, of course, individual tutors are monitoring their cohorts and are taking appropriate local action. Good practice in this regard needs to be systematised and included as a component of the monitoring and reporting process.