Thread by @drsadhvidar

#University students are in crisis and management are in complete denial. UK UG students have entered uni without taking A Levels bc of #covid disrupting their education. 1st and 2nd years of study have been chaotic. Covid, strikes, racial trauma, now cost of living crisis.

University mngt in the UK is in denial about how students have been impacted by these interconnected crises. Here are examples of things going horribly wrong that universities do NOTHING about

1. Students are not turning up to classes. Attendance has never been so poor and there is nothing that management are doing to understand why students are struggling to leave their homes and attend class. There is no mental health intervention, no support scheme to address this

2. UG Students are struggling more compared to PGs with reading assignments, interpreting texts, discussing texts or materials in groups. Students are shutting down in seminars, unable to articulate responses or questions. There is no extra TA support provided to hold space.

3. Students are still sick with #covid. Many students are getting ill and missing weeks, or months of classes. Students turn up to classes after covid without proper orientation or study support programmes.

4. There is a #mentalhealth crisis connected to #covid grief, anxiety, shock, trauma. There is no support provided to students except a staggering rise of ECs. On some modules, 50% of students had ECs. Students self report and receive extensions. They need help, mentoring.

5. Some are struggling to follow instructions and process information. Have universities looked into the impact of covid trauma on cognition? We know trauma impacts how the brain processes info. Unis have done little to address pedagogy in relation to covid trauma.

6. Students are becoming increasingly alienated by uni comms that assert all is back to normal. We are still in a pandemic. Students are still grieving. Some students are still crippled by anxiety. We need care and concrete actions to support our student communities.

7. Teaching staff experience regular IT failures during online classes. staff have been stranded alone, with no IT support, or TA. Our dissatisfaction with levels of student support and uni technology go unheard. The strategy to stream everything continues.