What will happen to university students in this lockdown?

[notevenat20]

If we have a lockdown next week, what is going to happen to university students? They can’t send them home as that would infect parents and grandparents. Surely the universities won’t carry on teaching face to face. Will they just leave them restricted to their student halls?

I’m betting not many people would like to be in a room of university students right now.

Im teaching face to face at a university and it's fine. Campus is probably one of the safest places to be - enforced social distancing, everyone in masks, classrooms spaced out etc.

There is no face to face teaching at many universities anyway.

This is incorrect. Lots of universities are still offering a high percentage of f2f teaching. It's well over 50% at my university.

My DD is second year. House shares with 5 others, pays £350 rent, completely skint and not allowed on campus. All lessons are remote from her bedroom.

Oh and we're in tier 3 with no immediate plans to move online.

My uni, as of an email sent last week, has gone back to online teaching until Jan at the moment.

@notevenat20

There is no face to face teaching at many universities anyway.

Is that really true in tier 1? Oxford and Cambridge have some face to face teaching. Bristol uni does. Do the others not?

DD hasn't had any F2F teaching yet. She is in Newcastle. There are loads of universities in tiers 2 and 3.

but will they treat one room as a household as opposed to eg a corridor?

Surely that will only apply to students in catered halls? Most halls these days are self catered so students will be in flats, so each flat would be considered as one household.

I said many not most @SueEllenMishke.

I'm a mature student. We have 45 mins of f2f teaching a week, 4 or 5 hours online. The rest is self study. It suits me personally as its easier to do around a family but a lot of students are being disadvantaged this year by teaching/lockdown/no socialisation/support.

I personally think unis should be saying all of those that want to go home should.

In NI all higher education has been asked to move as much teaching as possible online.

@SueEllenMishke

There is no face to face teaching at many universities anyway.

This is incorrect. Lots of universities are still offering a high percentage of f2f teaching. It's well over 50% at my university.

"Many" not all!

@Frouby

I'm a mature student. We have 45 mins of f2f teaching a week, 4 or 5 hours online. The rest is self study. It suits me personally as its easier to do around a family but a lot of students are being disadvantaged this year by teaching/lockdown/no socialisation/support.

I personally think unis should be saying all of those that want to go home should.

I agree - Unis should release them from their accommodation contracts (obviously I mean those living in Uni owned accommodation!)

Can't see why they'd stay open as many are barely doing f2f anyway. Dd has 2 lessons a week at most, often reduced to one.

Many of her course students have bailed and gone home to just access stuff online. Dd is currently on an employ flat as those she loved with have bailed for home too. She's currently 'bubbles' with another flat as she's now a single adult household but I don't know if that could continue in a lockdown. She's on the waiting list for a university halls place but not sure if and when that will happen. Even if it does it means paying two lots of rent - we will take the financial hit purely so that 18y Dd isn't having to be home alone longer term.

She might as well be at home accessing stuff online, though as things stand.

She had to do that for a fortnight of SI (I tested positive just after her arriving home so she got 'stuck' here) and it worked fine, though obviously not ideal.

I think the government is only proposing keeping universities open so that he does t have to admit they should never had gone in the first place. Most aren't actually open in any meaningful way right now anyway, based on what first year Dd and her old school friends are experiencing.

DD has had a mix of F2F, Practical and on line learning, both in college and in the department.

She only pays rent for the 8 weeks she is in college each term. So if she is kept in for longer then she will have to pay additional rent. Although there are hardship funds and food is heavily subsidised.

If you have kids thinking of going to uni next year - choose wisely. I don't think DD's experience so far has been wildly different to most years. In some respects ( more 121 teaching, smaller workshop & tutorial groups, better IT, more space for practical work, having laundry done, cleaners turn up more often) it has been better. From what some people here are reporting she has done really well out of it.

@notevenat20

If we have a lockdown next week, what is going to happen to university students? They can’t send them home as that would infect parents and grandparents. Surely the universities won’t carry on teaching face to face. Will they just leave them restricted to their student halls?

They will do what they are doing now.

It sounds like your DD is at Oxford or Cambridge Unescorted. I think students experience there is wildly different fom most universities right now. If DD had been able to go to lectures there would be about 300 students there. She doesn't have any one to one tutorials either.

@Unescorted
The short terms and learning experience you describe make me think your DD is at Oxford or Cambridge. It is absolutely not the typical experience of students elsewhere. No face-to-face, no practical work is what is happening in many places. Combined with a year of private rent/halls fees. Poor value and a poor experience.

Parents of potential students beware. What was promised by the universities is not what is happening. There is going to be a massive dropout rate, and a tide of mental health problems due to isolated students.

it’s a fair guess that most of the 1st year students at least have covid

My DS's college has not yet had a positive case, despite every student household being tested every week (asymptomatic testing programme).

I think it is unfair to blame universities for promising things because the current situation is very different from what they anticipated when they were planning lectures and seminars.

@Believehope
My dd is at Oxbridge and there is no face to face teaching at all.
Even though she is in a small department where we would be talking about 30 max in a lecture.
Her final year project will have to be computer based rather than practical lab based which is a disaster for her personally.
There was one planned face to face tutorial but that moved online as someone was self isolating.
Apart from the termly rent contract, obviously a bonus, the uni experience is equally as dire as everywhere else.
They have already announced online exams for the summer.
Our poor students are really getting a terrible deal everywhere. I’m so sad for them all, such an important time in their lives .

@cologne4711

It's true that universities are meant to be staying open but will they treat one room as a household as opposed to eg a corridor? Students may decide they'd rather be at home with some company than stuck in one room for weeks especially if they've already been through self-isolation.

I don't know about other universities, but at both mine and the other city university, a household is defined as people who share a kitchen and/or bathroom. So yes, the entire flat would be one household, and students wouldn't be sitting alone in a room.

My DD is in tier 1 and having online lectures only. She does go in to use the library, so she'd miss that. She is in a house rather than halls, so she could choose to stay there or come home. She doesn't have contact with her grandparent except online or outside.

@Ginfordinner

I think it is unfair to blame universities for promising things because the current situation is very different from what they anticipated when they were planning lectures and seminars.

I'd agree IF they'd starting F2F teaching in the first week or two before the numbers were rising out of control and local lockdowns were happening. They didn't, so it must have been the plan all along NOT to do much, if any, F2F teaching at some universities. Their websites were promising "blended" learning until end of August (some cynics would say until they'd got confirmed students/rental agreements).

Parents of potential students beware. What was promised by the universities is not what is happening. There is going to be a massive dropout rate, and a tide of mental health problems due to isolated students.

It's very unfair to blame universities. The blame lies with the government.
They told us to open
The told us to offer as much f2f teaching as we could
Universities that have moved online after the start of term have often been told to do so by PHE.

If you think your university has mid-sold you in anyway then by all means complain but in the vast majority of cases universities are doing their absolute best in very difficult circumstances

I’m tier 3 & we’re still teaching face to face, no directives otherwise as yet. Very low numbers of infected students recorded in our stats. Approx 50% of students coming in, the rest choosing to study online. The majority of my learners commute by public transport, come from densely populated minority ethnic areas, and many live in multi generational households - so they are high risk and I’m bending over backwards, working double my part-time hours to try and provide them with a quality remote learning experience.

Online teaching, whilst having its benefits, is causing massive problems for students with SEND, and a great deal of isolation for many others. The mental health impact is become extremely worrying. For example, I have one student who I see every other week for 90 minutes. The rest of the time she lives in a house with 9 other people she doesn’t know.

From my own perspective, I’d love to teach solely online. For the welfare of my students, I think face to face teaching is crucial for many.

It’s such a complex situation

I'd agree IF they'd starting F2F teaching in the first week or two before the numbers were rising out of control and local lockdowns were happening. They didn't, so it must have been the plan all along NOT to do much, if any, F2F teaching at some universities

Don’t underestimate the bureaucratic disaster that is many universities. At the uni I know they announced blended learning without having spoken to any department first. It’s still on their website. The departments then put everything online.