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Lockdown humor at Manchester Metropolitan University: "Sends beer"
Photo: Peter Byrne / AP
They feel "like they are in jail" or "completely neglected": Thousands of students in the UK have to stay in their dormitories and are not allowed to go outside.
The government has imposed regional lockdowns on some universities in the country to prevent corona outbreaks - and thus caused a lot of resentment.
Education Minister Gavin Williamson now struggled to get the students to persevere.
With a promise.
"Together with the universities, we want to ensure that all students can travel home safely for Christmas and can spend the festival with their loved ones if they want," said the minister on Tuesday.
However, he said, some might have to be quarantined at the end of the semester.
Thousands hold out in dormitories
It is questionable whether this announcement will calm the mind.
Thousands of students are currently staying in their dormitories in Glasgow, Manchester and Edinburgh.
In some places, security forces prevent the young people from leaving their accommodations, as reported by the BBC.
Some students take it easy, others are quite annoyed.
At the University of Glasgow, students put up signs saying, "Send beer."
In Manchester, on the other hand, the message "HMP MMU" is stuck on the window, which is supposed to mean that the dormitory has become "Her Majesty's Prison Manchester Metropolitan University" (MMU).
As the BBC reports, around 1,700 students at the MMU had to go into quarantine after 127 students had positive corona tests.
Some now feel "completely neglected", such as the student Anna Billaney.
"I study textiles and design, I can't do that from my bedroom," the student is quoted as saying.
She believes the lockdown will have a major impact on the mental health of many students.
Students in dormitories on Birley Campus and Cambridge Halls have been instructed to stay in their rooms for 14 days even if they have no symptoms, according to the report.
This is necessary to prevent the spread of Covid-19 to other students and employees, the university said.
But many students fear that the lockdown will be extended if infections occur again - and are annoyed that they are not allowed to leave their dormitory even with negative test results.
Several report of a strange atmosphere on campus.
Some students worry, among other things, whether and how they can get enough food.
Aslan Warburton, who lives with eleven other students in an apartment in Birley, told the BBC: "We are all trying to get food delivered." But that applies to 1,700 other students.
"A supermarket cannot deliver food to so many people."
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Inscription on the University of Glasgow: "Students are not criminals"
Photo: Andrew Milligan / AP
Several students criticized that they had little or no time to prepare for the isolation.
Dominic Waddell, 21, a freshman film student at MMU, said some students didn't even receive emails informing them of the lockdown.
"There was a security guard who suddenly stood at the gate of our accommodation and wouldn't let anyone go without really explaining what was going on."
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The opposition criticized the fact that the government had not drawn up any plan to support the students and had also opened the universities without providing the necessary number of corona tests.
Williamson countered, however, that the universities were very well prepared for corona outbreaks, and that there was virtually no alternative to opening the universities.
"The cost would be immense if we hadn't opened our universities," said the minister.
However, these should not be converted into money, but into missed opportunities for young people who wanted to study.
Williamson said there is no such thing as zero risk and that he does not want to condemn a generation of young people to "put their lives on hold for months or years".
The University of Manchester now wants to help the students in their predicament.
Malcolm Press, MMU Vice Chancellor, said there were online contacts available around the clock, and that students should also receive a care package to meet their "basic needs" - and financial help.
"We give the students a two-week discount on rent and a meal voucher," promised Press.
Is that any consolation?
"If I had known that things would develop this semester the way they do now and that only online teaching is taking place," the BBC quoted student Joe Ward as saying, "I would have thought carefully about going to campus this year at all go back. "
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Fok / with material from AP / Reuters
