Students to live and work in ‘bubbles’ to limit spread
Universities to create small groups and restrict mixing on campus as new arrivals face ‘virtual’ freshers’ week
Camilla Turner EDUCATION EDITOR
UNIVERSITY students will be grouped into “bubbles” to live and study together in a bid to limit the transmission of coronavirus on campus, vicechancellors have revealed.
The arrangement will see students divided into groups from the same course and allocated the same hall of residence. They will be given timetables to match the others in their “bubble”, to limit the amount of exposure they have to fellow students.
Students taking up places at university for the first time this autumn are likely to be greeted by a “virtual” freshers’ week, online lectures and one-way systems across campus, university leaders said.
A series of proposals for easing out of lockdown safely have been unveiled by Universities UK, the vice-chancellor membership organisation. Professor Liz Barnes, vice-chancellor of Staffordshire University, said that several institutions, including her own, were adopting the “bubble” approach.
The concept is already in use in primary schools, which have reopened this week to some year groups. According to guidance from the Department for Education, children should be split into groups of 15 at most and have their lessons, play time and lunch break with the same group. Prof Barnes explained that each “bubble” of students could come on to campus for a day at a time to “minimise movement” and to reduce the number of social interactions.
Prof Barnes, who is a member of the UUK’S board that is coordinating the sector’s virus response, said that the plan to create “bubbles” has “been discussed across a number of universities”. She added: “The more that we can keep them in a small group of regular interaction, the better. We are allocating students from the same courses into accommodation in groups, we are looking at block timetabling so students come in together and we minimise movement around classes.”
Cambridge University became the first British institution to announce that there would be no face-to-face lectures for the whole of the next academic year. Tutorials and smaller classes could take place in person, the university said, provided they conformed to social distancing requirements.
Vice-chancellors have published a report on how universities can emerge from lockdown, with ideas under consideration including “virtual” work placements and a greater use of outdoor spaces for classes and extra-curricular activities.
Prof Julia Buckingham, president of UUK and vice-chancellor of Brunel University, said that freshers’ weeks were likely to involve “virtual events” so students could interact while observing social distancing.
Shearer West, vice-chancellor at Nottingham University, said the institution was looking at how to make freshers’ week available to students from their halls of residence “rather than the all-singing, all-dancing, allacross-the-university” experience.
She said: “We’re planning to have people join things and get involved in societies, but we may have to run freshers’ fair in a different kind of way.”
A survey from the University and College Union showed that 71 per cent of applicants would prefer to delay starting university in the autumn if it allowed them to secure more face-toface classes. Michelle Donelan, the universities minister, said this had been a “difficult and uncertain” time for students, adding: “I am pleased universities are planning now for how courses might be adapted should restrictions be in place come autumn, providing much-needed clarity to students.”