Attendance Policy for UG Courses

This is to clarify some misconceptions about the Institute's attendance policy that seem to be common among undergraduate students. In the students' view, UGs are expected to attend only 80% of the lectures, and may  actually attend less than 80% lectures in case of illness or other "valid" reasons. A common refrain heard towards the end of the semester is "I missed 30% lectures, but the additional 10% were because of illness, so I really meet the 80% criterion".

This misinterpretion of the attendance rule by students leads to unpleasantness for the faculty, and an unexpected semester-end disaster for the students. In reality, the Institute expects all UGs to attend 100% lectures. However, a shortfall of not more than 20% lectures may be  condoned  if the shortfall is caused by valid reasons beyond the student's control and supported by appropriate evidence, such as personal illness or death in the family. In other words, no lectures can be missed without valid reasons, and the number of lectures missed due to valid reasons cannot exceed 20%.

The attendance rule is not meant to be punitive. The logic behind the attendance rule is that a student cannot be deemed to have taken a course unless he/she has had a certain minimum amount of classroom exposure. At IIT-Bombay, this minimum exposure has been decided to be 80% of lectures. Hence nobody who attends less than 80% classes (for whatever reasons, valid or otherwise) can be deemed fit to clear the course.

I strictly enforce the attendance rule according to the correct interpretaion I have described above in every UG course that I teach.  Any student who falls short of 80% attendance should expect to get an XX grade in my course, irrespective of the reasons for the lack of attendance. The only person authorized to condone excessive lack of attendance in special cases is the Dean of Academic Programmes. Those students who expect to miss more than 20% lectures in my course should approach the Dean AP well in advance of the deadline for awarding XX grades, and get a written letter from him/her condoning the extra lectures missed. In the absence of any such written instructions from the Dean AP, I will award XX grades without entertaining any explanations.