To think the government should not have let universities go back

[strawberrysandpecans]

If it knew already from modelling what would happen with Unis it should have made teaching online the first term and saved students the accommodation fees. Government should have subsidised Unis for these for a term and then see where we are after that.

I'm not going to argue about what Edinburgh University did or didn't do. However most universities made it quite clear months ago that a lot of the courses would be mainly online.

Mainly online, and all online are significantly different, the fact they waited until she had paid for her digs until it was announced is not the governments fault.

I know this isn't an isolated case, and because it is cross border it isn't a case of blame the tory's.

@Lifeisabeach09

Yep, as PP have said. More remote learning needed (needs) to be in place unless modules require physical presence (labs, placements, etc) I really don't get why F2F learning was needed for a lot of the courses.

Be use we were vilified for suggesting this earlier in the year.

Because we were told online learning was 'lazy' and not worth the fees we charge

Because the government told us to ....

Whilst I feel sorry for students, I feel even more sorry for all the frail elderly in care homes who are nearing the end of their life and not allowed visitors. They should much more public anger about this.

Remote learning puts students from a disadvantaged background at even more disadvantage. I taught an online class the other day, one lad was in the kitchen with his mum cooking nearby and his brother kept looking over his shoulder. I’m pretty sure he didn’t have anywhere else to go, or he would have been there.

@SueEllenMishke

It is not unreasonable to believe that online learning is required to reduce the spread of the pandemic and that this leads to a reduction in overheads for managing unused rooms and buildings that should be passed on to students in the form of fee reductions. Universities already had the tools and systems to enable remote learning (such as Moodle) after all.

@SueEllenMishke

Also it is high time that the craven idiots in charge of our universities got the noses out of the trough and stopped rolling over to every request and initiative that the government comes up with. You'd have thought they'd have learnt from the nursing bursaries fiasco, but they haven't.

[quote Hopoindown31]@SueEllenMishke

It is not unreasonable to believe that online learning is required to reduce the spread of the pandemic and that this leads to a reduction in overheads for managing unused rooms and buildings that should be passed on to students in the form of fee reductions. Universities already had the tools and systems to enable remote learning (such as Moodle) after all.[/quote]
Hahaha you clearly have no idea how universities work ....

The vast majority of universities were not set up to deliver online learning en masse - we're not set up that way. It's required significant investment and training.

Rooms are being used but at a much reduced capacity.

The government specifically told us we couldn't reduce or refund fees. The 9k fees don't come close to covering the actual cost of running degree courses - contrary to popular belief universities are not awash with cash. Reducing fees without government support will mean there will be far fewer universities around this time next year.

[quote Hopoindown31]@SueEllenMishke

Also it is high time that the craven idiots in charge of our universities got the noses out of the trough and stopped rolling over to every request and initiative that the government comes up with. You'd have thought they'd have learnt from the nursing bursaries fiasco, but they haven't.[/quote]
Again.... absolutely clueless. Do you think we have a choice????

My DS is a fresher and so far he is not being locked up like a criminal and actually he is somehow having a reasonably good time. And whatever anyone says he is coming home at Christmas.

After the shit he has been through no way should he now be told he is going home to sit on his arse for another 12 months doing nothing.

And don't tell him to GET A JOB - have people noticed jobs are not in plentiful supply. He tried very hard to get a new job after being laid off from his part time job in hospitality, but with no success.

YABU.

This is utter melodrama. Young people have been disproportionately hit by this and are largely not causing any issues.

Our government should have closed borders, quarantine anyone who arrives for 14 days and put proper test and trace in place a la Germany. Stop blaming poor students!!

Do find me the
Anechoic chamber
that works online
or the
PCR lab
or the
wind tunnel
or the
nuclear physics lab
or the physiotherapy course
FFS
the subjects that will save us from COVID cannot be done online

@SueEllenMishke given that I used to work at an RG university and very closely with the senior leadership of that university I'm quite well aware of how they work.

Universities are not public bodies, they have lots of choices in how they choose to operate. Government has merely stated that they will not require universities to reduce their tuition fees. The £9,000 per annum is maximum after all. This was in response to the university leaders telling the government that they could not afford it. Any university could reduce its tuition fees if it wanted to, just as it always has had that ability.

Many top tier universities in particular have plenty of cash in their running reserves and capital reserves and have been knocking up buildings like billyo for a number of years now. They just don't want to spend this reserve if they can avoid it.

We'll have to agree to disagree with the significance of the investment and training costs require to move online. Certainly my former colleagues received very little training and we using prexisting systems to deliver their online teaching. Of course there will have been some IT investment for sure, but my view is that universities have overstated this as part of their justification to continue to charge full whack.

[quote Hopoindown31]@SueEllenMishke given that I used to work at an RG university and very closely with the senior leadership of that university I'm quite well aware of how they work.

Universities are not public bodies, they have lots of choices in how they choose to operate. Government has merely stated that they will not require universities to reduce their tuition fees. The £9,000 per annum is maximum after all. This was in response to the university leaders telling the government that they could not afford it. Any university could reduce its tuition fees if it wanted to, just as it always has had that ability.

Many top tier universities in particular have plenty of cash in their running reserves and capital reserves and have been knocking up buildings like billyo for a number of years now. They just don't want to spend this reserve if they can avoid it.

We'll have to agree to disagree with the significance of the investment and training costs require to move online. Certainly my former colleagues received very little training and we using prexisting systems to deliver their online teaching. Of course there will have been some IT investment for sure, but my view is that universities have overstated this as part of their justification to continue to charge full whack.[/quote]
Your comments about the nursing bursary and your huge underestimation regarding the investment ( financial, people and time) required to implement systems that allow universities to deliver excellent online teaching suggests you're very out of touch.

strawberrysandpecans

Universities have made the decision to go back.

Many have refused to allow students to defer the year.

I'm am not in favour of young people bring locked up like they are in prison and i personally do not believe any parents are going to tolerate their kids being made to stay at uni for Christmas. But at the moment it's the students in halls and university accommodation who are being affected not the sizeable numbers living in private rented houses.

The government know very well that confining students to quarters over Christmas will not be accepted or adhered to. Conservatives are politically at heart libertarians and a sizeable portion of the party will oppose any more punitive measures.

But at the moment both my DC are enjoying themselves despite online learning and limits. DS is in a shared house of 10 in his 1st year at Sussex. DD is in the 2nd year at Manchester Met living in a rental house. She rang me today to say she will limit her socialising and be more careful as she doesn't want to infect others. But she's in good spirits.

We will do whatever distancing we have to do at Christmas - I'm happy to quarantine after they come home.

the government did not bail universities out in the summer so unis needed their customers back. the SAGE report released in the summer had modelled all of these different outcomes so the civil servants/government were aware but didnt care.

Conservatives are politically at heart libertarians

Maybe that used to be the case but I don't believe it any more

Is there somewhere that publishes the accounts in neat summary for universities, to see which ones have how much spare cash? I thought most Unis were carrying lots of net debt when their operational (in use for research or teaching) estate is excluded from the balance sheet, but happy to be corrected if there is objective evidence that some are sitting on mountains of cash/assets.

They should have been allowed to assess their own risk, defer if chosen, and thereafter left the fuck alone to be young and have fun. What's happening is beyond ridiculous.

I think there's a lot to be said for this argument. What's going on now seems to be the worst of both worlds really

@sueellenmishke

You claim that universities are being forced to charge full fees. That claim is wrong. They are not. The government is simply refusing to fund any fee reductions. The OIAHE had stated that universities may well have a case to answer in terms of fee refunds for example, they would not have said this if it was a government edict that all universities must charge full fees.

As for nursing bursaries. Senior university leaders were warned that cutting them would lead to a drop in recruitment yet both UUK and the Council of Dean's of Health were keen supporters of the cuts and charging nurses full fees. We now have a situation where the government has had to institute additional funding for these degrees to combat the recruitment shortage. Not sure why I am out of touch on that one.

[quote Hopoindown31]@sueellenmishke

You claim that universities are being forced to charge full fees. That claim is wrong. They are not. The government is simply refusing to fund any fee reductions. The OIAHE had stated that universities may well have a case to answer in terms of fee refunds for example, they would not have said this if it was a government edict that all universities must charge full fees.

As for nursing bursaries. Senior university leaders were warned that cutting them would lead to a drop in recruitment yet both UUK and the Council of Dean's of Health were keen supporters of the cuts and charging nurses full fees. We now have a situation where the government has had to institute additional funding for these degrees to combat the recruitment shortage. Not sure why I am out of touch on that one.[/quote]
Universities simply can't afford to cut fees unless they make even more staff redundant.
Reducing fees without government support will see mass redundancies across the sector and the closure of a number of universities.
The sector is so much more than RG and top tier institutions. We need to protect the sector not just a small, select group of universities.

Your experience of HE will tell you that the 9k fees do not cover the cost of running a large number of degree programmes. Slashing fees without support will be catastrophic for the sector.

Being fair to my uni (I'm a mature student) - I've kept in contact with my tutor throughout and I've had the informal nod throughout that if I needed to suspend my course for a year the department would support me on that (I had a child whose mental and physical health went to shit during lockdown). They also had offered to try to work out a part-time split of modules if I needed that - I can't fault the support my departmental staff have given.

I do have a mental bet how long the online learning platform is going to stay online when everyone's trying to hit it up at once (our teaching had pretty much finished by the time uni shut down last year) - it didn't cope gracefully with online exams! I'm betting it'll last till about 3pm on day 1 of teaching.

The OIAHE had stated that universities may well have a case to answer in terms of fee refunds for example, they would not have said this if it was a government edict that all universities must charge full fees.
This is in relation to individual students not blanket refunds and would only be if the university failed to deliver the course or didn't put satisfactory arrangements in place.

@pixley

Whilst I feel sorry for students, I feel even more sorry for all the frail elderly in care homes who are nearing the end of their life and not allowed visitors. They should much more public anger about this.

I don't think being angry about the one precludes being angry about the other.

@Hopoindown31 - I can only assume you only have experience of English institutions. The situation in Scotland is really very different. There’s no £9k fees; no ‘washing with cash’. Other than the big wealthy institutions (Edinburgh, Glasgow, St Andrews), most HEIs in Scotland are in really tight financial situations.

@SueEllenMishke has more of a similar situation to my institution.

However, saying Universities haven’t given suitable contingency planning for students returning isn’t fair in my experience. Many of us have been working 14 hour days for months to ensure things are as supportive as possible for students. My institution specialises in healthcare professions, which we can’t do remotely. You don’t want to be the patient of the nurse who learned to pass a naso-gastric tube via Blackboard Collaborate.
We have small numbers of cases - and students were asked to stay in for one weekend (not locked up); then have the same restrictions as the rest of us. I’ve worked most of today, answering queues from students and parents, and reassuring them that we’re delivering food, doing daily welfare checks via phone, and ensuring everyone is ok. I don’t think that’s irresponsible in any way.
Students aren’t exempt from the rules the rest of us are living with, and some compliance with them would be helpful.