Self-criticism

After dedicating thirty entries in this blog to the issue of the coronavirus, and given that some of them contained a certain amount of criticism of the decisions taken by the administrations (at all levels), I thought it would be appropriate to make some self-criticism. Or, to put it better, criticism of some of the decisions that the universities have had to take in the face of the pandemic.

Let’s forget the second semester of the last academic year (2019/2020), because as happened to almost everyone, the virulence of the first wave and the unexpectedness of an almost total confinement forced an “every man for himself” that, nonetheless, ended up being resolved in an acceptable manner, thanks to the prior existence of digital platforms that allowed online teaching to be reasonably assumed.

However, the decision taken in June under the auspices of the Ministry of Universities to teach this academic year on a “semi-presential ” basis could clearly have been improved, as subsequent events have shown. This vague concept of blended learning was then interpreted by each university in its own way, which in Andalusia took the form of a “hybrid bimodal system” (yes, that is what it has been called in a rather Baroque way). This hybrid bimodal system consists of one part of the students, who take turns each week, attending classes in person, while the rest follow the same classes at a distance (online). It was adopted by the University of Seville and the rest of the Andalusian universities, except for Pablo de Olavide University, which opted for online teaching (until there would be a substantial change in the pandemic).

From my point of view the adoption of the bimodal hybrid system was a mistake. For several reasons. One of them is that it reduces little or very little mobility and personal relations among university students (these measures –reduced mobility and personal relations– on which the prevention of the pandemic is based until the general vaccination of the population). Moreover, this bimodal hybrid system is unstable, because even in June it was known that there were serious risks of further confinements, partial or general (as has happened and seems likely to continue to happen in the coming months).

Specifically, the hybrid bimodal system in Andalusia has meant mobilising several hundred thousand students between the end of September and the beginning of October and concentrating them in the most densely populated areas of each province (almost in the same way as in previous years of normal healthcare). The case of Granada was paradigmatic. Three weeks after the start of classes, the university was forced to deliver its teaching online, but the students were already in the city and, as we know, more than enough university students socialised more than was reasonable in bars, halls of residence, private homes and “botellonas” (outdoor collective drinking gatherings). There can be little doubt that these circumstances were not unrelated to the extremely harsh impact of the second wave of the coronavirus in Granada (a third of whose inhabitants are university students).

Similar circumstances occurred in the rest of the Andalusian universities a few weeks later with respect to Granada, when at the end of October the Andalusian government had to tighten the confinement measures due to the advance of the pandemic. Thus, the Andalusian universities were forced for more than two months into an online teaching system, for which perhaps they had not prepared themselves as well as they should have, relying as they did on the bimodal system they had opted for.

Nor does it seem the best decision to resume the hybrid bimodal system as of 10 January, as the University of Seville has done. Mainly because we already know that the third wave is coming: the data available on 8 January (on which the University made its decision to return to the hybrid bimodal system) are probably biased downwards due to the fact that half of the previous 8 days were holidays. In addition, with only three weeks of classes left before the end of the term, it would have been preferable to continue with the habits acquired by the students during the previous ten weeks.

It is true that universities are obliged to follow the dictates of the Regional Health Departments and the National Department of Health. But the Universities have room for movement, as shown by the fact that some of them opted for a hybrid bimodal system for this academic year, while others opted for a more secure, stable and (given the circumstances) equally effective remote learning system.

Moreover, in relation to this pandemic, universities are not just random institutions: they are responsible for training doctors, nurses, epidemiologists and scientists. In other words, a large part of the collective that is confronting the coronavirus and beginning to beat it. Therefore, it is expected that the attitude and decisions taken by universities, within their competencies, should be more knowledgeable, informed and reliable than those of other institutions. While acknowledging that the evolution of the pandemic requires changes in strategy, the excessive fluctuations in university decision-making mean that the greater knowledge, information and reliability in decision-making that is expected from them is lacking.