UK students ‘would feel safer’ if blended learning continues

How is it that children of school age, including 18 year olds in 6th Form Colleges, will be legally obliged to attend classes along with their teachers, while University students may not? Are Universities being lazy, unnecessarily cautious or lacking imagination when they want to be 100% on line teaching and learning in September? And who are these students, unhappy to engage in face to face teaching but happy to go to raves and pubs with glee? I thought Universities, their staff and students were supposed to be at the forefront of innovation, pushing the boundaries of thought, self developed and learning.

Albert SW - the full Autumn reopening of schools in England should be the last place we look to for direction. The Westminster government seems to lack the ability to formulate a meaningful plan for schools, so it is ignoring the science and returning pupils to class sizes of 30 or more with no meaningful opportunity for social distancing. Threatening parents with the legal implications of failing to comply seems to compound the reality of government inadequacy – good plans don’t need to be underpinned with threats. School children may not be particularly vulnerable to Covid but many of the adults they mix with are – with no significant change to the underlying position regarding a vaccine or treatment this is a massive gamble as we move into the winter period. This article is about students making informed decisions about how safe they feel, not University leaders (some of whom will want to fill classrooms and residences to ensure that fees and rents are secur) so it seems that students at the start of their higher education journeys are far wiser than many current political and possibly some HE institutional leaders.