An email from gov.uk says that DfE has added new operational guidance for HE which applies from Step 4 that removes restrictions in line with wider society, including social distancing and the wearing of face coverings.
It also includes updated information on outbreak management plans, testing, and new and returning students travelling from overseas.
Naturally at the time of tweeting that guidance hasn't actually appeared on gov.uk, but you get the jist.
Anyway been playing around with a thing today thought I'd share it and some thoughts. Do add/challenge/argue/question and I'll then nick those observations for an ensuing blog.
The unit here is the "contact hour". These matter because the volume of them appears to be correlated to satisfaction perceptions of value and mental health.
Clearly not all column 2 hours are the same. Genuine simultaneous live in-person and online really hard to go well. Lots of (2) is really live with a recording.
When your wider industry is both a provider of services AND the principal source of scientific advice on the rules that should govern the safe operation of those services, you’re in a quite a privileged position.
You have to be careful to avoid scaremongering – you might unnecessarily damage your own industry. You have to avoid burying bad news – you might put people at risk.
It means that in comparison to others, you probably have to be much more public than most about the advice you’re getting, giving, creating, synthesizing and applying.
Some stats from OpenRent – the "UK’s biggest letting agent" from February are pretty hair raising. Buckle in.
UK students are currently in £171m of rent debt. 11% of students are currently in arrears. The average arrears of this group is £1,341. 34% of students who rent have been unable to pay their full rent at some point since the pandemic started.
56% of students find their rent “usually or always hard” to afford. Part time work - Students have lost £4.40bn of income since the start of the pandemic
The average loss of student income during the pandemic so far is £2,761.
In the UK student financial support is determined by your home nation, and funding for universities determined by the nation where your university is based. Thread.
That's thrown up a few anomalies this year because in-year hardship funding has been routed through universities rather than through the SLC.
If you think for example about massive disparity in help for students between Wales and England, the 25,000 or so students from Wales studying in England have good reason to feel completely abandoned by their host nation.
In the context of Boris now arguing that the £70m hardship fund is now also for "lost learning" I wanted to run a short thought experiment on lost learning. A thread.
I talk a lot - as do OIA and OfS - about lost learning both in terms of "outcomes" and "opportunities". Important difference is that some in sector want to maintain that "outcomes" unaffected this year...
but as I always say - students cant be paying for outcomes, because it has to be possible to pay in full and also fail. They're paying for a set of facilities and services that include a series of learning opportunities.