Education Board Puts its Foot Down on Students Skipping Classes

Students who regularly skip classes might want to think twice before doing so in the future. In other words, you are going to need a better excuse than "I was tired".

Existing policy requires students to attend at least 80% of classes. This will be enforced with language classes immediately and eventually implemented across the board.  The stance was agreed on by members of WUAS’ Education Board in their last meeting.

“We want to ramp up the quality of our graduates,” Wittenborg’s director of education, Peter Birdsall, said about the reasoning behind the decision. “Learning a second language is becoming increasingly more important in the job market – a fact which was also stressed by the accreditation body, FIBAA, in their comments on employer expectations.”

Consistently failing to show up for classes might have ramifications for a student’s grades and even jeopardise their study visa, if they are an international non-EU student.

According to school policy - as set out in Wittenborg’s Education and Examination Guide (EEG) - students arriving more than 10 minutes late for the start of a lesson will be barred from entering the lesson and marked absent. If students miss more than one lesson in a block of 4 weeks, the module lecturer has the jurisdiction to decide not to mark the exam. Only in exceptional cases, determined by the Exam Board, the exam would be marked. Students who are sick, or have another serious reason for not attending class, should contact the student administrator.

Stronger even, as part of the study agreement between Wittenborg and a student, signed upon admission, Wittenborg has the authority to inform the IND if a student attends less than 80% of the lessons, which could lead to their student visa being revoked.

Dr Teun Wolters, Wittenborg researcher and lecturer for MBA and IBA students, said absence is particularly a problem if you are a MBA student: “First of all, there is the impression that attending classes is not very important - which is not true. Some students who have a job give priority to that, but if you are a full-time student it is not acceptable.

“Especially with MBA students it is not just a matter of writing papers, but also of participating in discussions and contributing to the class with experiences from your own country. If that is absent, the whole experience is incomplete. If there is not a valid reason for not attending all classes, I do not submit results to the registrar.”

WUP 14/11/2016

by Anesca Smith
©WUAS Press