So we have loads of kids effectively locked down in their student digs with covid or isolating.

This one is far from straightforward but, having listened to the woe's of a 17 year old kid at Glasgow Uni, confined to her student digs having tested positive, it sounded extremely tough.
Should the students have been told not to go back and "attend" on line lectures or should they have carried on as though there is nothing going on.

Thankfully my kids are now beyond Uni but, parents must be going through the wringer on this one, especially at, in Scotland, they aren't allowed to go and collect their kids, they have to leave them there to "get through".

Come on - these are kids their parents never expected to see until Xmas - if they thought they would see them before they are sad individuals indeed. Having put three kids through Uni I wanted them to embrace the life and forget about life at home - time to gain some independence of thought and life.

If you haven't taught your kid the life skills to live on their own more fool you

So it was wholly the right decision to move 2 million kids to their chosen Uni's to study on line (no live lectures at the moment).
Interestingly, any kid wishing to return home from a Scottish Uni would apparently be breaking the law but, strangely, if they live in England (or elsewhere) they can legally return but, are being asked not to.
Said students being told to get covid tests but, having to use public transport to travel X miles for a test, spreading the virus further still.
I think that you may have missed the point

The title of your thread was “fiasco”

How is it a fiasco? Don’t get me wrong, I know that just like every other thread of yours, it’s a dig at the government, I just want to see how you spin this one

Did you go to university? if you did you will know the studying is but one element of university life - the amount of live lectures is minimal. We have devolved administrations in the UK so there will always be difference in application.

There are a tiny proportion of students that have the virus so this panic that they are master spreaders is nonsense - they are no more spreading the virus than the anyone else who uses public transport to get to a test centre

You are right you are missing the point - recorded deaths yesterday were 34 yesterday half of 1% of those testing positive - we need to get some perspective here.

Let's see how it plays out but, there could have been a delay to the physical return to Uni, perhaps starting the year with on line lectures and then either delaying the return or staggering the return.
Let's face it, the usual "freshers" stuff has had to be massively scaled down.

Wrong again.

Young adults are THE group most responsible for spreading the virus, although thankfully the vast majority of them seem to get only a mild version of the virus.
Of course there is a lot more to life at Uni than the actual studies and the students get far more from the non academic side of things than the actual degree.

Again, the point about students travelling on public transport to get a test is that they dont generally have a choice, their family members are usually too far away to help with this, although this isn't always the case.
Having said that, its crazy to be on public transport if you have Covid, regardless of whether you are a student, pensioner or whoever and I would suggest that this situation needs addressing, quickly.
If any person risks infecting the other people on P.T. they would be better off not having to use it ??

I seem to remember that certain individuals on here were critical of the teaching unions when they warned people that what has just happened would happen.

Indeed.
Some seem to have no grasp of just how a virus spreads.
Just because children and young adults aren't keeling over as a result of coming into contact doesn't mean that the rest of the population wont catch the thing themselves.
The whole situation is turning to farce.
How can people no longer be able to see their own family members but can now drop their kids with other families for formal and informal childcare.
There was an interesting interview on Look North with the Leader of Leeds council, who struggled to answer half of the questions put to her, that were sent in by members of the public.

Not a fiasco but close to fraud. Deliberately encouraging them back when it was obvious there would be a spike and online teaching. Just to help fund the universities and their research and to give the landlords cash.

It's a travesty, it really is.
Some of the poor lambs are even getting 'junk' food delivered to them during quarantine.

Well, it depends on what sort of accommodation they have paid for.
Back in the day, all students had to fend for themselves, cooking, eating, shopping etc

However, these days there is a "catered for" option, for those students who cant or dont want to do these things.

Now, if you've paid for a decent meal or two everyday and someone drops off crisps and kit kats at your door, you are most definitely being short changed.
Having said that, a balanced diet for most students is beer, pizza, beer and kebabs or, when looking after themselves, copious amounts of pasta..

It would be a bit like buying a season ticket to watch FC and then being forced to watch KR instead.
Some may be ok with that but, others wouldn't be very happy

“I see no problem. The larvae flourish when confined to their hexagonal pods.” - Dominic Cummings

This no longer exists. Replaced by a canteen and store, within at the campus that my son is currently. Both happen to be closed due to corona virus restrictions. He's doing his own cooking, as the price of everything was extremely inflated.

No longer exists because of Corona or, knocked on the head before then.
I realise that canteens etc cant open as they did. However, is the "catered for" option no longer "sold" by the Uni's

As I said, close to fraud. The leaked SAGE minutes show that they were saying all lectures at least for the first term should be online/distance learning. Students sold a dummy (although, arguably,they can’t be bright enough to be at a proper university they could not see that).

The Universities, heavily in the ear of our Government are largely to blame here.
Not wanting to be put in a position where they may need to think about any refunds for accommodation, they willfully and determinedly encouraged all students to attend.
No staggered or later starts and look at the bloody mess.
The utter bilge and nonsense about "missing freshers" was ridiculous and this AGAIN falls directly at the feet of our Government.

It's a good job they arent sorting our the brewery trip

It’s not just the university lobby it’s the buy-to-let in university cities lobby .

Knocked on the head beforehand.

Having looked a little further into this, fully catered options are still being "sold" at a number of Uni's, with the main aspect being a full "dinner" each day.
Therefore, back to my earlier point, if you have paid for lunch and dinner and are then given "snacks" instead, surely you are being short changed ?
I relaise that, amongst the myriad of issues that the kids and Uni's are trying to deal with including not being able to run the canteen's etc, looking after those on the "gold accommodation package" will be well down the list but, they certainly aren't getting what they paid for.

It seems clear that there should have been a delay to the start of the year, with on line working (probably from home) being a far more sensible option and then perhaps the virus numbers, particularly amongst the 18 - 25's may not have spiked.

It also appears that this was suggested but, dismissed by those "in charge" and now we have much tighter restrictions for all.

Great work again Bojo.

No fully catered for options were available in the 6 universities that we visited, although it was mentioned that they were available in some literature, just that it hadn't been updated.
Not saying that goes for all universities, but no catered for options in the ones we looked at.

It was never a thing back in the day and wasn't available for my eldest but, some of the "better" Uni's were certainly offering it when my lad went.
Personally, I thought that the "looking after yourself" was one of the main "tests" for getting through and I was amazed to see the "fully catered for" option.
Some would say that we are indeed too soft on the kids today and whilst I can see the advantage for anyone that has "issues", it didn't quite sit right.
Again, some of the places had en suite facilities akin to a decent hotel, a long way remove from the perceived student accommodation that we all hear so much about.

The obvious thing to do is shut the universities making the students work from home and see the impact this has on the figures for certain areas. I would guess the majority will be no worse off because at least they would no longer be locked in.

Whether at Uni or at home most would be out on the razz in some format, even with closed pubs

It's too late now, the horse bolted from the stable 6 weeks ago
Freshers week is one of the highlights of any students time at uni, meeting lots of NEW people and getting to know housemates etc.
Circa 2,000,000 young people moving house, into new areas and partying hard.

It's difficult to imagine a better "hot bed" for a virus spreading than these circumstances.

Now, having encouraged all students to return and with virus numbers rapidly increasing, the students are left, isolated to their accommodation and working on line.

The alternative was to delay or stagger their move to (or back to) Uni and tell them to study on line, until they could return.

The rocket scientist in me, still thinks the latter of these options would have been better for the students and better for the locals in the area where they were moving to.



WTF were those "in charge" actually thinking, it beggars belief and now, EVERYONE is facing much stricter rules and a further lockdown, foe all of us seems inevitable.