Covid may see students decide to study from home (or the Gobi Desert) next term – John McLellan

Universities are beginning to wrap up the current term, with teaching mostly ended and final assessments being marked.

Edinburgh University set up a major Covid-19 testing site that can process more than 3,600 tests per day (Picture: Lisa Ferguson)

For lecturers and students alike, it has been a difficult and far less rewarding experience all round.

Students arrived as expected in September and occupancy rates in halls were high because it was presumed the worst of the virus was over, and some normality would return as infection rates continued to fall.

As The Who sang in 1971, won’t get fooled again… and while Education Secretary John Swinney spoke this week rather optimistically about a staggered return in January, the question is whether there will be a return at all.

As campus contamination was controlled by limiting student movement, most teaching will stay online with little resumption of face-to-face tuition before the next academic year, so the learning experience will be unaffected by location.

You will be able to study just as effectively at Heriot-Watt from the middle of the Gobi Desert as long as you have an internet connection.

All those students heading home after three months cooped up in their rooms know there is no need to repeat the experience next term.

Without social events or university sports and societies for thousands, there really isn’t much point, so those who don’t need to return are more likely to stay at home if they can, where at least the fridge is usually full.

But for those shops and cafes which are sustained by Edinburgh’s 50,000 or so students, the fridges might be full for the wrong reasons.

John McLellan is a Conservative councillor for Craigentinny/Duddingston

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