In Multimedia University (MMU) where I’m studying, there’s a control system for students’ attendances called - the ‘barring system’.

According to the system, any student who attended less than 75% of the lecture/tutorial sessions for any single subject, will be barred from taking the final exam paper for that particular subject!

Ask any MMU student, and he/she’ll probably tell you that the word ‘BAR’ is one of the scariest words to be uttered in campus.

Sounds scary? Ain’t it?

I did not think it was scary at all when I first came to this campus. I thought that this system is totally out of my concern because I wouldn’t be skipping classes without reasons anyway. So I happily ignored any warnings or advices by our seniors on what trouble I’d be in if I was barred.

But it turned out, I WAS DAMN WRONG!!!

I realized that, while getting 75% of university attendance was quite easy, getting 75% attendance for each single subject is not a small deal!

On the internet, we can monitor our attendances so far. Here’s a cropped-out image of my attendance as of today: (The upper table for lecture sessions, and the lower for tutorial sessions.)

• Don’t bother the second last one. There’s a mistake in the record because I attended another tutorial group… I’ll have it rectified soon. Hehe…

As you can see, I have a couple of subjects that are in serious danger of being barred (75% and 77.78%), while the rest are relatively safe. There are certain factors that cause those subject to be more oftenly skipped compared to the others, primarily the time, subject content, and lecturer factor. I’ll elaborate later.

And then there’s the ‘lecture/tutorial counted seperately’ policy, which means that even if I had a full attendance for a particular subject’s lectures, but less than 75% for its tutorials, the whole subject is doomed, as in my case of Engineering Mathematics II is close to be!

Due to this, some students are more concerned in scoring attendances in classes rather than learning! Which later leads to common practices like asking friends to sign for their attendance; and leaving the lecture hall (from the backdoor, pretending to go to the toilet), once the attendance sheet has passed them.

But before you start thinking bad about those students, let me do them justice by pointing out the possible factors of causing an absence.

There are 3 types of factors:

The acceptable type (the boring ones)

1. You got ill.
2. It’s raining too heavily.
3. It’s a Friday and you had to catch a bus back to your hometown.
4. You had a club/society activity and you were needed to be there.
5. The class clashed with an extra/replacement class.

The unacceptable type (the typical ones)

1. The lecturer sucks.
2. You woke up late that morning.
3. Day for presentation that you didn’t prepare.
4. Need to study for an exam which is on that day.
5. Too stressed out/tired that day.

The annoying type (but always happens!) =(

1. That particular class was at freakin’ 8 o’ clock in the morning!
2. You asked someone to sign for your attendance but he/she forgot.
3. The lecturer forgot to bring the attendance sheet, asked you to sign in the next class, which you then missed!
4. The lecturer never updates the attendance report on the internet, you thought your attendance was fine, and you skipped class.
5. Your friend signed for you but the lecturer was too clever and noticed.

So I think you now understand how difficult it is to have a full attendance, don’t you? =)

You might ask, why does the university care about your attendance in lectures if you could pass your exams anyway?

The answer is simple: If you were barred from taking the final exam for a subject, you’d certainly fail the subject, which would cause you to retake the subject in the future, and pay for that same subject 2 times to the university! =(

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