Moi University introduces Electronic Attendance System to track students' lecture attendance

Moi University has introduced an electronic class attendance monitoring system, aimed at tightening academic accountability and addressing cases of students missing lectures while remaining registered as active learners.

The system will first be applied in the School of Education and the School of Information Sciences, where selected lecture halls have been fitted with electronic devices designed to capture and record students' attendance automatically.

The university is expected to hold an online induction this week to familiarise students with the system and explain how it will work ahead of full rollout.

The system replaces the manual attendance registers commonly used in universities, where students sign against their names during lectures. The manual method has faced challenges involving impersonation, with some students signing for absent colleagues. The electronic system is expected to give digital attendance records that are more reliable and harder to manipulate.

The initiative is also expected to help the university keep accurate attendance records, strengthen academic accountability and encourage students to attend lectures consistently. It could make it harder for students popularly known as "ghost comrades", who appear active on campus without regularly attending lectures, to avoid the university's monitoring.

Regular lecture attendance remains an important part of university education, allowing students to interact with lecturers, take part in discussions, seek clarification and keep up with coursework.

Questions remain on how the university will treat students who miss classes for legitimate reasons, such as illness and family emergencies, and what procedures will apply when the equipment fails or does not register a student who is present. How the university handles these cases will determine whether the system is seen as fair.

Students in the two schools will be the first to experience the new arrangement as the university begins moving towards technology-driven attendance management.