Recent debates around attendance, discipline, and academic stress in Indian universities point to a deeper crisis about what a university is meant to be. The controversy triggered by a Delhi High Court ruling on mandatory attendance is not an isolated episode. It reflects a broader erosion of academic authority, institutional autonomy, and clarity of purpose within higher education.
What the court ruling signals
In November, the Delhi High Court ruled that no law student should be barred from appearing in examinations solely due to insufficient attendance. While the judgment was framed as a relief against stress and exclusion, its implications go far beyond a single regulation.
By diluting the enforceability of attendance norms, the ruling effectively shifts academic decision-making away from universities and into the judicial domain. This raises concerns not just about pedagogy, but about the autonomy of universities as self-governing academic spaces.
The creeping redefinition of academic stress
Three ideas have gained increasing traction in recent years:
- That academic rigour and tight schedules are inherently harmful to student mental health.
- That minimum discipline within higher educational institutions stifles creativity.
- That compulsory attendance itself is an unreasonable burden.
Taken together, these arguments risk redefining universities less as sites of intellectual transformation and more as service providers whose primary obligation is comfort rather than challenge.
Returning to the idea of a university
To understand what is at stake, it is useful to revisit foundational thinking on universities. In his seminal 19th-century work, The Idea of a University, John Henry Newman described the university as a space where knowledge, freedom, and moral purpose converge.
For Newman, universities were meant to cultivate intellectual discipline and public-spirited citizens. Institutional autonomy, especially academic autonomy, was central to this vision. Universities existed not merely to certify students, but to generate original knowledge and serve the larger public good.
Bureaucratisation and the changing role of faculty
Contemporary universities have drifted far from this ideal. As Peter Fleming argues in Dark Academia: How Universities Die, faculty members are increasingly burdened with administrative and policing roles — attendance monitoring, disciplinary enforcement, compliance reporting — for which they were never trained.
This bureaucratisation drains academic energy. Faculty time and attention shift away from teaching and research towards managing disputes, placating parents, and satisfying regulators. Failure to perform these quasi-policing roles often invites public backlash, further eroding academic authority.
Stress is real, but universities are easy scapegoats
There is no denying that today’s students operate under intense social and economic pressures. Competitive job markets, family expectations, and digital overload all contribute to mental health challenges. Academic environments can aggravate these pressures.
However, universities often become convenient scapegoats for what are fundamentally systemic and societal problems. Most institutions lack specialised mental health infrastructure, yet are expected to absorb blame for student distress while simultaneously delivering ambitious curricula mandated by regulators.
The impossible choice before universities
Universities today face a dilemma with no easy answers:
- Lower academic standards to accommodate struggling students, risking dilution of rigour.
- Maintain standards and push students to cope, inviting accusations of insensitivity.
Neither option is satisfactory. The result, in many institutions, has been a quiet erosion of academic expectations — fewer demanding assessments, diluted evaluation, and declining classroom engagement.
Why attendance still matters
Mandatory attendance is not a mere bureaucratic obsession. Classroom teaching remains central to academic rigour, particularly in disciplines like law that depend on discussion, argumentation, and interpretive skill.
While artificial intelligence and online platforms have expanded access to information, they cannot replace the personalised guidance, intellectual mentoring, and ethical formation that occur through sustained teacher-student interaction. Treating attendance as optional risks turning universities into credentialing hubs rather than learning communities.
The unintended push towards online education
Ironically, the relaxation of attendance norms may accelerate the very trends that undermine universities. If physical presence is no longer required, online and hybrid modes become default, especially for resource-constrained institutions.
For highly technical and professional disciplines, this shift could hollow out training quality. Law, medicine, and engineering education, in particular, depend on immersive, interactive learning environments that cannot be replicated online.
What to note for Prelims?
- Delhi High Court ruling on attendance for law students.
- The Idea of a University by John Henry Newman.
- Concept of university autonomy in higher education governance.
- Growing role of AI and online education in universities.
What to note for Mains?
- Judicial intervention versus institutional autonomy in higher education.
- Balancing mental health concerns with academic rigour.
- Bureaucratisation of universities and its impact on faculty roles.
- Long-term implications of diluting attendance and discipline norms.
