How Has The Pandemic Changed Education In Schools & Universities Across the World

Universities and restrictions for their students during the pandemic

From overcrowded lecture halls in France to a ban on sleepovers in Ireland, special coronavirus apps in the UK, snitching on dorm parties in the US and shuttered campus gates in India, students face a range of experiences when – or if – universities reopen.

Authorities around the world have introduced different measures to try to balance the needs of third-level education with those of public health amid an autumnal surge in Covid-19 infections. Students will encounter new rules, tensions and scrutiny in response to fears that universities and colleges will open the pandemic’s floodgates.

At one extreme lies France where the government wants people back in lecture halls and tutorial rooms to bridge education inequities worsened by the crisis. Mask wearing is mandatory at all times and social distancing is encouraged but some institutions – not all – are overcrowded, with students cramming every seat and nook of lecture halls.

“It’s quite hard at the moment because we haven’t got any extra means,” said Franziska Heimburger, the assistant director of the University of Sorbonne’s English department. “We don’t have any more teachers, we don’t have any more space, so we basically have to teach as best we can.”

Some students across France have denounced overcrowding and inadequate hygiene on social media using the hashtag #balancetafac (squeal on your uni).

Across Europe, where universities open this and next month, there are rules on social distancing and hand washing as well as expanded online teaching. Italy is prioritising in-class teaching for first-year students.

Some British colleges have set up their own testing sites and apps to identify, track – and hopefully help contain – outbreaks. University College London will use only a quarter of its buildings at one time, a policy recommended by one of the UK’s leading public health experts.

Many countries have banned student parties. In Scotland students have been told not to go to pubs this weekend.

Ireland has banned students from hosting visitors or overnight guests in college accommodation. Universities planned to reduce in-person learning and on Friday agreed to a government request to further scale that back.

Staff at one Dublin university said preparations were “Pythonesque”, with authorities at one point wanting to limit hand-sanitising stations lest they drew crowds.

In Greece students are demanding emergency funding for extra teaching staff and cleaners to ensure not all lessons are conducted remotely. Students in Thessaloniki are lobbying to be allowed to use expansive facilities that normally house the city’s international trade fair.

Israeli universities barely had time to work out their coronavirus policies for the autumn semester before record infection rates triggered a second national lockdown last week, shuttering nurseries, schools and universities.

In India, where daily coronavirus cases exceed 80,000, only one state has given approval for universities to reopen for the new term, which typically begins in November. Restrictions overseas have prompted many Indians – 61%, according to one survey – to postpone plans for international study.

The pandemic has thrown US universities into disarray. Despite distancing rules in classrooms and canteens, dozens of campuses have become virus hotspots, with suspicion falling on cramped dorms and parties. Some universities have sent students home and cancelled in-person instruction, alarming health officials who worry students will spread the virus at home.

Some colleges, such as Yale, have set up hotlines to report risky activity. Others are asking students to report illicit parties and name peers who break rules, prompting a debate on the ethics of snitching in the era of Covid-19.

Should kids wear masks?

Masks likely blunt spread at school, but children—even more than adults—find them uncomfortable to wear for hours and may lack the self-discipline to wear them without touching their faces or freeing their noses. Does discomfort override a potential public health benefit?

“For me, masks are part of the equation” for slowing the spread of COVID-19 in schools, especially when distancing is difficult, says Susan Coffin, an infectious disease physician at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “Respiratory droplets are a major mode of [virus] transmission,” she says, and wearing a mask places an obstacle in those droplets’ path.

In China, South Korea, Japan, and Vietnam—where masks are already widely accepted and worn by many during flu season—schools require them for almost all students and their teachers. China allows students to remove masks only for lunch, when children are separated by glass or plastic partitions. Israel requires masks for children older than age 7 outside the classroom, and for children in fourth grade and above all day—and they comply, says Aflalo, who has 8- and 11-year-old boys. On the bus ride to school, “all the kids are sitting with masks on,” she says. “They don’t take them off. They listen to the orders.”

Elsewhere, masks are less central. In some schools in Germany, students wear them in hallways or bathrooms, but can remove them when seated at their (distantly spaced) desks. Austria reopened with this approach, but abandoned masks for students a few weeks later, when officials observed little spread within schools. In Canada, Denmark, Norway, the United Kingdom, and Sweden, mask wearing was optional for both students and staff.

Not all countries have the luxury of instituting a mask policy driven by science and comfort. Benin requires masks in public spaces, but because the cost can be prohibitive for families, schools do not turn maskless students away. Students in Ghana returned to school in May wearing masks—if they had them. South Africa, which faces a rising COVID-19 caseload, is racing to provide free masks to all students who need them.

For Aflalo, the potential value of masks was underscored after a record-setting heat wave struck Israel in mid-May. As temperatures rose to 40°C, masks became intolerable, and with the health ministry’s blessing, students and teachers largely put them aside for almost a week.

For 2 weeks—the typical COVID-19 incubation period—things seemed fine. Aflalo left to go camping in the desert with her family. But then, a crisis: While on vacation, “I started getting calls about the Gymnasium,” says Aflalo, referring to Gymnasium Rehavia, the school in Jerusalem with the large outbreak. Aflalo can’t say for sure that the outbreak was fueled by a lack of masks, but she believes the timing is suggestive.

Do schools spread the virus to the wider community?

Because children so rarely develop severe symptoms, experts have cautioned that open schools might pose a much greater risk to teachers, family members, and the wider community than to students themselves. Many teachers and other school staff are understandably nervous about returning to the classroom. 

In surveys of U.S. school districts, as many as one-third of staff say they prefer to stay away. Science could find few reports of deaths or serious illnesses from COVID-19 among school staff, but information is sparse. Several teachers have died of COVID-19 complications in Sweden, where schools did not modify class sizes or make other substantive adjustments.

Early data from European countries suggest the risk to the wider community is small. At least when local infection rates are low, opening schools with some precautions does not seem to cause a significant jump in infections elsewhere.

It’s hard to be sure, because in most places, schools reopened in concert with other aspects of public life. But in Denmark, nationwide case numbers continued to decline after day care centers and elementary schools opened on 15 April, and middle and high schools followed in May. In the Netherlands, new cases stayed flat and then dropped after elementary schools opened part-time on 11 May and high schools opened on 2 June. In Finland, Belgium, and Austria, too, officials say they found no evidence of increased spread of the novel coronavirus after schools reopened.

What lies ahead?

In much of the world, schools that closed in March remained closed through the summer break, and autumn will see a wave of reopenings. For millions of especially vulnerable children, however, the break may continue indefinitely. Many low-income countries lack the resources to shrink class sizes or provide everyone with masks and so are hesitant to reopen in the midst of a pandemic. In June, Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said schools will likely stay shut until the danger of COVID-19 has passed. Similarly, officials in the Philippines said in-person schooling will not resume until there is a vaccine to protect against COVID-19.

In other places, ranging from Mexico to Afghanistan to the United States, planning for fall 2020 is underway. In the United States, school districts are releasing a patchwork of plans, which often include hybrid models that alternate distance learning with small in-person classes. Whether those plans sufficiently protect children, staff, and communities from COVID-19 will depend on how case numbers look as opening day approaches. This reality was thrown into stark relief late last month, when Arizona’s governor announced he would delay the state’s school reopening by at least 2 weeks, to 17 August, because of a surge in cases.

The experiment will continue. Yet scientists lament that as before, it may not generate the details they crave about infection patterns and paths of transmission. “There just isn’t really a culture of research” in schools, Edwards says. Gathering data from schoolchildren comes with layers of complexity beyond those of traditional pediatric research. In addition to seeking consent from parents and children, it often requires buy-in from teachers and school administrators who are already overwhelmed by their new reality. Integrating research—the only sure way to gauge the success of their varied strategies—may be too much to ask.