A locked-down halls of residence on the College of Dundee on the finish of September. Lucas Nightingale/Shutterstock

Plastered in mock desperation to the home windows of college halls, cheeky indicators requesting alcohol and different pupil requirements have been briefly entertaining. However for these concerned, the novelty – if there ever was one – will certainly have worn off. At the same time as new more durable restrictions on socialising are launched throughout Scotland and the remainder of the UK, college students are experiencing uniquely strict situations relating to COVID-19.

On September 24, Universities Scotland introduced new guidelines for college students dwelling in pupil lodging. Endorsed by the Scottish authorities, these newest restrictions have been important and included a ban on college students socialising with anybody outdoors their family.

The announcement got here with warnings of disciplinary motion towards rule violations, together with a “yellow card/pink card” system that might see college students lose their place at college, in addition to the intensified presence of workers and police on campus to watch college students’ compliance.

In response to indicators of an exodus of panicked college students from pupil lodging, the Scottish authorities rapidly up to date the rules to make clear that college students can return residence for “cheap causes”, together with psychological well-being and monetary or household emergencies. However authorities ministers and college officers have additionally refused to rule out retaining college students locked down over Christmas. These strict new measures have been justified as important to breaking spikes in COVID-19 an infection charges in pupil lodging throughout Scotland since mid-September.

Blaming younger folks and college students

Charges of COVID-19 have been rising in latest weeks throughout the UK and younger folks have been perceived to be at fault. Whereas evaluation has proven that an infection charges for folks below the age of 35 have elevated over time, the suggestion is that this improve is all the way down to younger folks disregarding social distancing rules.

Lacking from this commentary is the acknowledgement that younger folks have been discovered to have a excessive fee of compliance with rules. They’re additionally at a very excessive threat of contracting COVID-19 as a consequence of issues like their over-representation in jobs coping with prospects head to head, and being extra more likely to reside in shared dwelling areas and depend on public transport than older adults.

So the suggestion that spikes are completely as a consequence of reckless rule breaking and that younger individuals are the foundation reason for a second wave of COVID-19 is problematic and unhelpful, notably when used to justify the implementation of distinctive measures for college students who’re successfully dwelling in isolation throughout Scotland proper now.

Implications of pupil lockdown

The restrictions have been met with widespread concern, particularly relating to college students’ psychological well being and wellbeing. Shifting to pupil lodging is usually a optimistic and formative expertise, however may also be difficult at one of the best of occasions. Residing with strangers, away from residence, within the midst of a brand new and sometimes nerve-racking academic atmosphere is demanding sufficient. Below COVID-19, college students usually are not solely locked down but additionally navigating an unfamiliar new life expertise.

Most face-to-face educating has now been suspended and changed with on-line studying. So there was a major drop in touch time between college students and educating workers, which is especially regarding for first-year college students, who make up the majority of residents in pupil lodging.

Locked-down college students have shared their experiences with journalists and on social media, the place they’ve described feeling remoted, homesick, anxious and depressed – in addition to unsupported by their establishments. Pressing questions have additionally been raised in regards to the implications of those restrictions for college students’ fundamental human rights, together with their authorized rights relating to tenancies.

The seriousness of COVID-19 and the significance of containing it isn’t in query. However these restrictions have been uniquely and unhelpfully couched within the rhetoric of blame and punishment. This has contributed to a picture of younger folks as reckless and substantial dangers to public well being, with media protection of events in pupil halls specializing in a minority of rule breakers.

The function of presidency

The coed lockdown and the give attention to younger folks’s behaviour have additionally come on the expense of a consideration of different key components. College students have been inspired to be bodily current and resident on college campuses, simply as they have been inspired to spend cash in hospitality venues throughout the federal government’s “eat out to assist out” scheme, together with everybody else.

Universities have obtained little governmental assist through the pandemic, regardless of proof of utmost monetary hardship. These establishments rely closely on revenue from pupil lodging and college students being current on campus to remain afloat. This may also be linked to the marketisation of universities round a “pupil expertise” that has come to outline college training, face-to-face educating

and campus dwelling.

The UK and Scottish governments’ failure to intervene quickly to assist universities to work with a special mannequin below COVID-19 has performed a major function within the disaster occurring in campuses throughout Scotland and the remainder of the UK.

On this sense, college students’ bodily and psychological wellbeing has been risked and traded towards sustaining a better training sector on its knees. It’s crucial within the coming weeks that each governments reevaluate their assist for universities and college students, and make clear their positions on the coed lockdown.

In the newest replace on COVID-19 restrictions from Scotland’s first minister Nicola Sturgeon, there was no point out of scholars. Presently, there isn’t any endpoint to those restrictions, that are posing important dangers to college students’ well being and wellbeing, to not point out their fundamental human and authorized rights.

Charlotte McPherson doesn’t work for, seek the advice of, personal shares in or obtain funding from any firm or organisation that may profit from this text, and has disclosed no related affiliations past their tutorial appointment.