From Thursday 5th November 2020, England went into a second national lockdown, with restrictions similar to those imposed in the spring. Boris Johnson, however, announced that schools, colleges, universities, and other educational settings would remain open.
In the press conference on Saturday 31st October, Johnson said, “My priority, our priority, remains keeping people in education.”
Throughout September and October, there has been a surge in COVID-19 cases across universities and cities. In the week commencing Monday 28th September, there were 681 confirmed cases of COVID-19 amongst the staff and students at the University of Manchester, according to their website.
At the University of Liverpool in the same week, there were 96 positive tests which rose to 258 the following week when term was underway.
It is a stark contrast to some southern universities, with the University College London having reported 548 in total since Monday 28th September.
The question is, should universities be closed during the four-week lockdown? Speaking to Kay Burley, Andy Burnham, Mayor of Manchester, said: “Let’s get the full benefits of a national lockdown. Of course it’s difficult closing schools, but I think schools will be less disrupted if we get this real circuit break. To be honest, it’s not a proper circuit break unless we really do close everything.”
The National Education Union are calling for educational centres to be closed during the four-week lockdown, setting up a petition asking people to email their local MPs to #PutSchoolsInTheLockdown.
Kevin Courtney, Joint General Secretary of the National Education Union, said that by “ignoring the role of schools and colleges in the spread of the virus” harsher lockdowns in the future may be necessary. The NEU originally called for England to do the same as Wales and Northern Ireland with a ‘circuit break’ tying in with half term.”
Does the government not realise that by having another lockdown yet keeping schools & uni’s open isn’t going to make a difference to the numbers of covid positives? Yes it will go down slightly but I’ve had to isolate 3 times now due to some1 having it at college & have –
— amelia suffell (@ameliasuffellx) October 31, 2020
Most universities have moved many of their courses online to minimise the contact students are having with the university and other students, however, this doesn’t seem to be having much of an impact given that 22,661 cases were recorded in England alone on Monday 26th October.
A first-year physiotherapy student at the University of Liverpool said: “I would rather go into lockdown for a couple of weeks if it meant that we could just get on with our course without all these changes. Doing my lessons online doesn’t really work as we need to be learning from the lecturer and each other, especially with practical sessions. It is also a chance to get out of my flat and see my course mates.”
I just don’t get why Universities are to stay open. Most lectures are online and there is no socialising on Campus. That leaves 1000s of students spending day after day in their room. Mental health time bomb.
— Andy Hind (@andy_elearning) October 31, 2020
There is also the argument that students are being charged upwards of £9,000 per year to study online, which doesn’t include accommodation or living costs. Speaking to one final year student at the University of Nottingham, he said: “We have all our resources online that we can access whenever we want. However, our WIFI has been down for the last couple of days so we have not been able to do any of the work.”
A petition has been set up asking universities to partially refund fees for students who could not access the full extent of facilities on offer. This has already received 217,891 signatures and will be debated in parliament on Monday 16th November.
Written by Martha Wilson
Featured image courtesy of Merve Selcuk Simsek on Unsplash. Image license found here. No changes were made to this image.
