Are Higher Education staff being included as critical workers?

[wrimong]

The Welsh list of Critical Workers explicitly includes Higher Education staff who are critical to the covid-29 response, but the English list is less specific - it just says "specialist education professionals who must remain active during the COVID-19 response to deliver this approach".

Does anyone know if some HE staff are being included? I work for an HE provider and it hasn't been mentioned, even though some staff are working their butts off to get everything online while simultaneously homeschooling their own kids.

In terms of accessing school presumably? I wouldn't have thought so. A lot of my colleagues (also HE) are working from home with their kids in the background.

I think the Welsh list refers to researchers or staff who have to access their buildings - security staff, animal care, vital lab work. In which case I think the same applies to English. Is that your role?

The people I'm thinking about are IT staff putting learning materials and assessments online, and keeping the systems up and running. But I would also include lecturers who are producing the materials, and student support staff who are manning the helpdesks.

The Welsh list says ...
"Further Education (FE) and Higher Education (HE) lecturers ...
specialist education professionals,
support staff on site at schools, FE and HE settings such as catering, cleaners, caretakers, maintenance staff all those involved in schools/FE/HE institutions to operate"

They can do those jobs from home though largely - I don't know any lecturing staff who need to be on site. Most IT stuff and student support is also done remotely. All those examples listed have to be on site. Lecturers, help desk and IT bods don't.

It shouldn't matter whether they're on site or not. The guudance doesn't say they have to be on site to be classed as critical workers. It would have been significant when the advice was for key workers to keep children home if they could, but that's now (quietly) changed. The advice now is that key workers' children should be in school.

Link to the latest guidance for England ... www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-maintaining-educational-provision/guidance-for-schools-colleges-and-local-authorities-on-maintaining-educational-provision

It says "Now that we have made progress in reducing the transmission of coronavirus we are encouraging all eligible children to attend settings (where there are no shielding concerns for the child or their household), even if parents are able to keep their children at home."

But HE institutions aren't schools or colleges and their students aren't allowed back. So I don't know why you'd think HE staff would be key or critical? They're not.

HE staff are still teaching though, they are just doing it online. They are not classed as key workers for school purposes, so many will be lecturing their children in the background.

many will be lecturing their children in the background
And foreground!

They're not.
They are, because they've had to respond rapidly to the challenge of delivering online learning to thousands of uni students at home (just as many school teachers have done for children). That's why the Welsh guidance mentions HE staff explicitly.
The English guidance is more ambiguous, but it uses the broad term Education Staff rather than School Staff.

This is a direct quote from the guidance ...

"If your work is critical to the COVID-19 response, or you work in one of the critical sectors listed below, then your children will be prioritised for education provision and are strongly encouraged to attend.....
Education and childcare:
This includes:
childcare
support and teaching staff
social workers
specialist education professionals who must remain active during the COVID-19 response to deliver this approach"

And also workers in ...
"information technology and data infrastructure ... to continue during the COVID-19 response"

FFS everyone's had to respond rapidly. The Welsh guidance suggests it only applies to staff who have to be on site given the examples they list.

Data infrastructure is physical servers. The vast majority of IT roles in HE are done remotely.

I really don't see any justification for thinking this applies to HE staff who can work from home sorry. I don't know any institution that thinks this way either.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree then titchy.

Imho, there's now nothing in either the Welsh or English guidance to suggest homeworkers aren't eligible for Critical Worker status. I think there was in the previous version, because that said you should keep your child at home if possible and only use the school place if you had no other choice. That meant some staff putting themselves under a lot of stress to fulfill their critical roles alongside their homeschooling responsibilities, and this change will potentially help them.

Well the rest of the sector agrees with me so.... good luck.

I don't think you have visibility of the whole sector. Our management are actively considering the implications of the guidance change, so I don't suppose they're the only ones.

No I don't. But I think the unions would be onto this if it were the case. Our management certainly has better things to occupy it than whether they should be writing letters for staff to give to their kids' schools. Particularly as there's virtually no teaching anywhere now.

Our union reps are (now) onto it, and as our management are rightly concerned about staff well being they are taking it seriously and looking into it.

It would only apply to a small proportion of staff in specific roles.

What sort of staff? You referred to support staff, IT staff putting materials online and lecturers earlier - did you not mean these then?