UCU demands end to face-to-face teaching after prime minister’s Halloween lockdown U-turn
England’s universities will not be forced to close during the nation’s second national lockdown, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said, to the fury of the main university union.
Announcing a second national lockdown for England to fight the coronavirus pandemic on 31 October, Johnson said, “My priority, our priority, remains keeping people in education. So…schools, colleges and universities will all remain open.”
The prime minister’s surprise Halloween move for a one month lockdown from 5 November to 2 December follows the government’s previous insistence that its tiered system of local lockdowns was the right way forward.
If approved by parliament next week it will follow second-wave lockdowns from the governments of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Students in Scotland are being encouraged to stay on campus despite lockdowns in halls of residence, while students in Wales have been told to stick to online learning amid local lockdowns.
But the move to keep universities in England open already looks set to add fuel to debates about whether academics and students should be on campuses at all. The University and College Union immediately insisted the second lockdown should end any remaining face-to-face teaching at universities.
Speaking ahead of the prime minister’s announcement, but after news of the lockdown broke in the media, UCU general secretary Jo Grady said Johnson was “gambling with the health of the nation by keeping college campuses open”.
Even before the 31 October announcement, the UCU had launched a legal challenge over the government’s decision to reject advice from the Scientific Advisory Group on Emergencies to move most teaching online.
“We desperately need to lower the rate of transmission to protect the NHS, and Sage says that halting in-person teaching will help contain the virus. Half measures that keep campuses open do not represent a full lockdown,” she said.
Leading researchers and the government’s advisers say that, while unwelcome, the lockdown is needed due to rising Covid-19 cases across the UK.
“We have currently tried balancing scientific with political need in several different approaches to handling the second Covid-19 wave. These have regrettably not seen significant improvements in case numbers. Thus, responding to the current data by changing our current countrywide management plan is the right thing to do,” said James Gill, honorary clinical lecturer at Warwick Medical School, in a statement distributed via the Science Media Centre.
Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust, said, “No-one envies the job ministers have right now. The evidence is stark but this is still a very tough call and the government deserves credit for changing its approach in the light of a very fast-moving epidemic.”