Universities toughen the return to the classroom: these are the agreed measures

Signage on the floor of the corridors at the University of Córdoba PACO PUENTES / EL PAÍS

Neither the majority of the rectors nor the Ministry of Universities have ever contemplated a total return to the classrooms that host 1.3 million university students.

In July, optimists, they opted for a bimodal system - with part of the student body following the lecture from home and part in the classroom, and the practices always

-, but now that classes are starting - they will do so in stages until the first week of October - they see the need to tighten anti-contagion measures given the advance of the pandemic, which is especially prevalent in the nightlife of young people.

These are the measures agreed on Monday at the meeting of the Secretary General for Universities, José Manuel Pingarrón, and a representation of the regional councilors.

Minister Manuel Castells underwent surgery last Friday and has not attended the appointment.

Mask.

The Minister of Education, Isabel Celaá, announced last week that from the age of six, schoolchildren would wear a mask at all times and, as expected, the ministries of Universities and Health have determined that higher education students will also wear it. always put.

In the selectivity exams in July, at the last minute, several communities required candidates to wear the mask during each exam, while others chose to have it removed when they were five feet away sitting in the classroom.

For this beginning of the course, the previous protocol contemplated that the students did not wear it during the lesson.

Responsible covid.

Universities also coincide with Education in the need to have a covid manager in each of the 83 universities (50 of them public).

This manager, in turn, will have to coordinate covid managers in each faculty.

This is an obligation, not a recommendation, since it emanates from the Ministry of Health and authority prevails over university autonomy.

Tracking on campus.

The covid manager of a center, in the event that there is a case, will help determine with whom people in the university community have had close contact.

Strait is understood to be any person who has spent more than 15 minutes less than two meters away from the infected person without a mask since the 48 hours prior to the onset of symptoms.

These contacts will undergo a PCR test and, regardless of the result, must be quarantined, as they can develop the disease over the next 14 days.

Quarantine.

The re-adaptation of the protocol provides that any student or teacher with symptoms must stay home until they undergo the PCR test.

If the result is positive, the person will not be able to return to the University until three days after the end of the symptoms, and always after obtaining authorization from the health authorities.

Fresh air.

The 26-page document proposes that the classroom windows be kept open as far as possible and if not that the spaces are ventilated between 10 and 15 minutes between classes.

During the selectivity, some faculties chose to open the sales while keeping the air conditioning on, which turned the classrooms into an oven.

These forced ventilations will force to reduce the duration of the lessons, which is close to the hour in most centers.

Teaching in prison

.

"The student who goes into a situation of isolation will have the right to receive the corresponding teaching in a non-face-to-face way, always attending to the idiosyncrasies and specificities of each subject", it is agreed in the document.

This measure is less complex and compromised than imaginable, because the campuses intend to record the classes in such a way that the student who cannot follow it live - in Galicia there are options that the system will crash, for example - can connect at another time.

Without unfolds.

The Castells ministry is not in favor of dividing the groups into two to continue teaching face-to-face classes with a meter and a half of separation.

The president of the rectors, José Carlos Villamandos, calculates that for a class with 100 students, the University of Córdoba would need a room designed to accommodate 400. In his case, they have even set up a desacralized chapel to teach.

"The unfolding would imply an unaffordable overload for the teaching staff," underlines the ministerial document.

Since the previous economic crisis, the teaching staff has dwindled and aged and the unions already warned in July that they could not take on a more teaching load

At the meeting, it is pointed out from the ministry, the issue of the distribution of the 400 million of the covid fund destined for higher education has not been addressed.

This formative stage includes the University, higher vocational training and conservatories.

As it is a meeting with the delegate committee - a representation of the regional councilors - the celebration of the General Conference on University Policy has been postponed, in which all regions will be present and which will foreseeably be held on September 11.

The campuses have made a great financial effort in cleaning shifts, computers, support staff, strengthening their communication networks, practice simulators, loan of materials to hospitals ... They say they are on the verge of bankruptcy for this reason.

In an interview published this Monday in this newspaper, the president of the rectors even assures that at least four autonomies want to cut the departure to the universities, since they focus on schools, where 8.2 million schoolchildren study.

That is why in July the rectors asked Castells for help - who promised to discuss it with the regional governments - and demanded that the Ministry of Finance mediate, which according to the royal decree of the covid fund can take concrete measures.

At the end of the meeting in the ministry, on the other hand, Pingarrón praised how "the excellent collaboration of the autonomous communities and the universities has been revealed" throughout those three hours.

Although it is an orientation protocol ―except for some measures required by Health - the campuses, which have university autonomy, abide by the measures because they have been negotiated by the CRUE ― practically all the universities are members of this conference of rectors - with the ministry and the communities.

Based on this common document, the regional governments will update their own protocols, which were published in the respective official gazettes, and in turn serve as the basis for the contingency plans that each university is obliged to draw up.

This official bustle contrasts the image of inactivity that public opinion has, caused by obscurantism in the work of the ministry.

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