Think the focus should shift to university

[CKBJ]

I am still concerned for my children to return to school, not because I think they will become unwell but the risk of Covid entering our house where vulnerable grandparents live with us and for the teaching staff who seem to have little protection. However, not much is being said about universities opening in a few weeks and the new focus should be this.

Many, many students will be moving into halls of residence and student houses bringing together students from all over the country. Independent sage has been arguing for all courses unless they require lab/practical elements to be offered online and remotely. This won’t suit all students but does give them an option and possibly reduce the amount of students moving around the country. Fees should be reduced accordingly. As the majority of students use a student loan to pay fees, they should only be responsible for paying for say 3/4s back and the 1/4 is covered by the government therefore meaning the university doesn’t lose any funding. The government seems to find money for many other things.

I was just considering the education side but obviously there is the whole social side as well. Many cities will have an influx of students into their pubs and bars. This could put a lot of pressure on the local areas increasing the possibility of transmission.

It seems nearly every year there are outbreaks of Meningitis and other illnesses that seem to occur when students all gather together. These aren’t going away, they will still be a risk and the added risk will be Covid.

I’m grateful I my children are not heading off to university this year but do feel for those who are and their families. Anyone else have any thoughts?

Don't forget the thousands of staff who work at universities!

We are still, on the whole, not consistent with the demographic of a care home! There’s a balance to be struck between thinking that everyone on a university campus is young, healthy and not at risk, and suggesting that we’re going to be seeing care-home level deaths. That sort of hyperbole is not doing us any favours. There are risks that need to be addressed, but Grady is making university staff look ridiculous.

On the plus side , perhaps people will stop saying the Teaching Unions are hysterics now

@notevenat20

I am no epidemiologist but it could be a disaster. If thousands of students become infectious and spread it to everyone they meet, killing a handful of Nobel prize winners in the interim....

I think the question I’d most like answered is what number of infections would prompt a university to cease face to face teaching and move everything online. In the US, some universities have allowed the number to creep up well into the hundreds before moving online. One of them, in California, is now sending students home because the level of infection is so high that they can no longer support sick students. I hope that managers of UK universities are looking and learning from the mistakes that are being made over there.

I know all of our lecturers would bloody kill us if we compared them to a set of care home residents! (Still fully plan on giving the one who did really crap on a TV quiz screened over lockdown a bit of ribbing for it though - revenge for the crap jokes against my football team)

The care home rhetoric has actually especially pissed me off since I was told by one of the uni staff, about a week before things started to move rapidly in terms of closing down - that my raising concerns that they were sending students, including one who had just come back from Northern Italy on a nice quiet holiday "because no one was going out because of the Corona thing" into care homes was possibly something they needed to start looking at - was me being unnecessarily negative and just being obstructive and that she didn't understand what the fuss was about as it was just a cold... following week the care homes locked their doors and the end of that week uni closed down.

[quote Piggywaspushed]On the plus side , perhaps people will stop saying the Teaching Unions are hysterics now

Said I wasn't holding my breath.

Are you an academic @newgirls?

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/bulletins/coronaviruscovid19infectionsurveypilot/englandandwales28august2020

possibly might help give a degree of perspective

My uni goes back on the 28th sept and I'm due to start my 2nd year.
I'm doing a science degree so will have practical labs but they'll be done in small bubbles apparently.
As far as I'm aware everything else will be delivered remotely.

It's going to be a strange semester/year!

What should happen with the academics who are over 60? Should we treat them differently? Their odds if they catch covid are not ones you would wish for a family member.

I agree that opening universities is not likely to be like the care home debacle. More likely to be like the Cheltenham races debacle instead.

I feel sorry for students starting out at uni. It won't be as fun as usual.

@Jamdemic

That blanket 2 threshold is still applying at my DS school sixth form. Will be annoying if someone he never shares a classroom with gets a positive test and he has to stay home for 2 weeks needlessly. They could easily and accurately establish which pupils need to stay home. Likewise, he could sit behind a year 7 with a positive test on the school bus and never get told to quarantine (based on ultimate defence of mask).

DD has the same. I am not particularly reassured that the school's policies are based on very out of date versions of the Government's guidance (clear from a number of points within the text) but hope that if they do have a positive test, they will at least know that they have to call local public health, who will update them and work with them to decide what to do....

@notevenat20

I agree that opening universities is not likely to be like the care home debacle. More likely to be like the Cheltenham races debacle instead.

Yes, exactly - a way of widely dispersing the virus within communities, which will then lead to a secondary effect in terms of those communities spreading the virus to their most vulnerable members...

I wonder if there’s any other uni library workers here? Face coverings are mandatory in libraries but compliance is shockingly low at mine. I’d say 75% of students take them off once they get past the entrance. We’re open for study so it’s not just a case of people quickly popping in to borrow a book - they’re sitting near each other for several hours at a time.

Studdnts share kitchens and toilets.
They should isolate when those others gets symptoms.

But then they could be paying 9k and missing the f2f lessons

But then they could be paying 9k and missing the f2f lessons

A lot of students are paying a lot more than that. UK universities now have as many non-EU students as they can persuade to come to the UK.

Charging those high fees has completely changed the relationship between students and universities. I don't know how well it was thought out.

My DS & everyone he knows will be going back to their University towns - many have already gone for a change of scenery. They gave to pay for the accommodation anyway so feel they may as well be with their Nate's. DS is sharing with 5 others,some of whom are doing different courses, have girlfriends in other shared houses etc etc. His girlfriend is at another university, in another shared houses etc etc. He is doing a practical subject. I think the lectures are a tiny part of the problem with spread of the virus once term starts. But life has to go on.

@SnuggyBuggy

Charging those high fees has completely changed the relationship between students and universities. I don't know how well it was thought out.

We all need to remember that this was a government decision and nothing to do with universities. It has changed students into consumers and changed how they view the university experience. It was decision imposed upon them by government but universities are the ones who have to deal with the issues it creates.

But then they could be paying 9k and missing the f2f lessons

I’m trying to work out your ethical reasoning here.

Because they pays tuition fee, they shouldn’t isolate even if they are a risk to others?

By the wY, undergrads don’t do “lessons”. It’s not school.

And I’m pretty confident that many students, given the choice of a seminar or tutorial in a mask, sitting at a 2metre distance from each other with the windows open, or a well-conducted small group live on Zoom, will opt for the latter.

We’ve all been using online platforms for maintaining family contacts during lockdown. It’s not the same as face to face and being close to people, but given requirements for social distancing, it’s not a bad compromise.

And there will be students who are vulnerable or shielding, just as there are vulnerable or shielding staff.

Among my immediate colleagues are people who are in the shielding category. They’re being told that shielding has ended and to get on with it.

I’m in the sector too. Our institution to socially distance needs to run at 15% of its capacity. The 300+ lecture theatres can fit 40. Students need to wear masks and come in once per week and just come in for teaching and use the one way system to navigate the buildings.

They’ll be noting like the numbers normally in a uni building in term time. So it’s really ‘getting on with it’.

Whereas teachers in secondary schools this weekend really will be getting on with it.

We all need to remember that this was a government decision and nothing to do with universities.

Could you expand on this? I don't know what decision you are referring to exactly.

What it looks like to the outsider is that universities have become grossly bloated with non teaching, non researching, non revenue generating staff who now have to be paid for by huge numbers of overseas students.

By the wY, undergrads don’t do “lessons”. It’s not school.

That might be a distinction without a difference. Universities often have "classes" of roughly a school lesson size.