As the COVID-19 rate soars, universities are due to welcome students back over the next few weeks. Boris Johnson has warned students not to gather in groups of more than six. This is good advice, with the slight problem that it won’t apply to either their seminar teaching or to those with whom they share their accommodation, which is where they will spend most of their time. Students and lecturers, and their respective unions NUS and UCU, are deeply worried that universities are unsafe, views that are supported by scientists from both the government’s own advisory group, SAGE, and scientists from Independent-Sage. UCU argue that teaching online is the only way to prevent unnecessary deaths. So what do universities themselves think?
Officially the line from UUK, the organisation that represents university management, is that institutions will be COVID-secure. Unofficially, something quite different has been acknowledged. Universities know that they are likely to spread COVID-19 by bringing students onto campus, but they also know that without this they will go bust.
