Oxford students contract to attend lectures

This is idiotic.

"Students starting degrees at the University of Oxford this year could be asked to sign a legally binding contract requiring them to attend lectures."

Being responsible on an annual basis for anything between 1600 and 3000 technology undergraduates over the past eleven years, I've seen my fair share of students presenting the University with difficult issues which might have required legal process intervention [but didn't,fortunately, in the end]. Some of these cases were genuine failures on the University's part, which I hope we were able to put right; some were baseless. These cases relate to an absolutely tiny minority of the students I've been privileged to support and the type of contract Oxford are proposing would not have stopped the litigious ones being difficult. It merely serves notice on the vast majority of decent honest students that they will not be trusted.

Like drm, this approach is about keeping honest people honest and will be similarly received.