Richard Morris, of the school of accounting at the University…

Richard Morris, of the school of accounting at the University of NSW, which requires an entrance score in the top 5 per percent of students, says attendance has been a problem since the late 1990s.

Sometimes in the lecture we’ve only got about one third of students 1 attending, he said. It definitely is a problem. If you don’t turn up to class you’re missing out on the whole richness of the 2: you don’t think a whole lot, you don’t engage in debates with other students or with your teachers.

It is not all gloom, said Professor John Dearn, a Pro Vice-Chancellor at the University of Canberra, who said the internet was 3 the way students access and use information. It is strange that despite all the evidence as to their ineffectiveness, 4 lectures seem to persist in our universities.