Don’t delay decision on compulsory student jabs, universities urge
‘The state does not need to trample on the freedoms of young people to make the case for vaccines’
DELAYING the decision on whether students need to be vaccinated to attend lectures is “legally and practically impossible”, vice-chancellors have warned.
University leaders have said they are prepared to “engage, explain and encourage” to students the importance of getting jabbed rather than impose restrictions on those who have not been fully vaccinated in time for the start of the academic year.
Reports emerged earlier this week that the Government is considering making it compulsory for university students to be fully vaccinated in order to attend lectures or stay in halls of residence.
Yesterday, Dominic Raab said that decisions on whether students needed to be vaccinated to return to campus would be taken in September.
The Foreign Secretary told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the Government would make sure students, most of whom will be starting term that month, had “advanced warning”. Asked whether vaccination would be advisory or compulsory for students returning to halls of residence, Mr Raab said: “When we come to the crunch, these decisions will be taken in September.”
But university leaders have hit back at the remarks, with one saying that a decision in September would make it “very difficult to implement both legally and also practically”.
The vice-chancellor said that universities had been attempting to persuade ministers to drop plans that amounted to “coercion”.
“There is reluctance from the sector to this both in principle and in practice,” he said.
Tory MPS have also voiced their disquiet about it, with Rob Halfon, chairman of the education select committee, saying: “I’m strongly in favour of vaccinations and am glad to have had mine: but they should be encouraged by persuasion not coercion, especially when it comes to getting an education.”
Greg Smith, MP for Buckingham, said it was “fundamentally undemocratic” to introduce vaccine passports for lecture halls since it was “imposing a bar to entry which raises issues of civil liberty, inclusion, discrimination and intolerance which British universities traditionally have resisted”.
He added: “We are miles clear of most other nations in terms of vaccination take-up rates. The state does not need to trample on the freedoms of young people, who have sacrificed more than most, to make the case for vaccines.”
Lawyers advising universities have pointed out that, when prospective students accept a place, they enter into a contract with the institution. If vaccine status was not mentioned as part of this, introducing it as a requirement at a later stage could fall foul of contract and consumer law. The same is true of contracts with halls of residence, they added.
The Association of University Legal Practitioners also pointed to public health legislation which would need to be amended to give the power to make vaccination mandatory.