A Queensland university prompted outrage by ordering its academics to scrap established plans for online teaching and return to face-to-face classes, a sign of the sector’s chaotic and disjointed response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Universities across the country are still grappling with how to continue teaching during the crisis, after the federal government firmly advised them on Wednesday that “university and higher education should continue at this time with risk mitigation measures”.
The sector already faces a massive financial hit, with analysis in the very early stages of Covid-19 suggesting the top 10 universities would lose $1.2bn due to Chinese student travel bans alone. The situation has prompted serious concerns for the future of casual academic staff.
A host of universities – the University of Queensland, University of Melbourne, University of Adelaide, University of Wollongong and University of Technology Sydney, among others – are rushing to transition their courses online. The Australian National University is pausing its teaching for a week from Monday and says it is “stopping face-to-face teaching for lectures and moving to remote participation”.
The UQ vice-chancellor, Peter Høj, told students in an email late on Sunday that it would temporarily cancel all coursework after a fourth confirmed case on the campus.
“This is a big call, and not one I have taken lightly,” Høj wrote to students.
The University of Sydney and Southern Cross University have each committed to delivering all of their classes remotely from Monday.
But others are pressing on with some form of face-to-face teaching of lectures and other classes, albeit with risk mitigation measures, including Monash University.
The University of Western Australia says on its website that it is continuing to “operate as normal and our academic calendar is unchanged”. It also announced it is moving all lectures and tutorials and, where possible, practical classes to online delivery mode until further notice from Monday.
The approach to staff leave has also been disjointed. Some universities are providing affected staff with special coronavirus leave, others are telling staff to use their existing personal and annual leave.
At the University of Sydney, Nick Riemer, a senior lecturer in English and linguistics, said teaching staff had found themselves rushing to prepare for online classes while also juggling the concerns of students. He said there was “widespread concern” across campus about the implications of the virus for teaching and professional staff long-term.
“It has been fairly chaotic and there are all these intense extra demands being placed on staff,” he said.
“This semester I have less than 80 students and there is still a quite significant extra time burden placed on my work [but] colleagues who are running much larger lecture programs have reported exponentially higher workload.”
Riemer also said he was concerned that “emergency measures” put in place during the crisis – including extra working from home demands – would become “normalised”, as well as fears for professional and casual staff at the university.
“There’s an enormous amount of concern about the implications for the amount of work available for those staff,” he said.
The response of the University of the Sunshine Coast, which had to conduct deep cleaning following a visit from the home affairs minister, Peter Dutton, two weeks ago, has prompted a particularly angry response from staff.
The university on Friday announced it would pause coursework teaching and assessments for a week from Monday, to give it time to redesign its courses to support online delivery and social distancing.
But earlier in the week, it told staff to reverse plans they had already developed to deliver the vast majority of their courses online.
On Wednesday, senior leadership at the university wrote to the school and ordered it to retract the plans and return to face-to-face teaching, citing the advice of the federal government.
The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) described the decision as “nuts” and deeply irresponsible.
“For the University of the Sunshine Coast to say we were ready to have online delivery for some of our subjects but actually we’re going to return to our normal timetabled operations, that is just nuts,” the union’s Queensland secretary, Michael McNally, told the Guardian.
“There’s no reason for that. Many universities are actively trying to put their stuff online, for the simple reason that even if universities aren’t closed, it reduces the risk to the community to deliver as much of the teaching as possible online.”
It also appears to run counter to the advice of the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee, which on Wednesday said it supported universities using as much online teaching as possible.
“Given the demonstrated feasibility of online delivery of lecture content, we support universities and higher education centres moving to an online platform, where appropriate, for continuity of student education,” the committee said.
The shadow health minister, Chris Bowen, advised universities to use “common sense” as they continue operations.
“I would expect and trust that universities, that while they’re exempt, are nevertheless applying some common sense in minimising any unnecessary gatherings of large numbers of people, whether it’s less than 100 or more than 100,” Bowen told the ABC.
The University of the Sunshine Coast did not respond directly to the NTEU’s criticism. But a spokesman said the university was “working towards what is expected to be a government directive to suspend face-to-face teaching in the near future”.
“Much planning and work in recent weeks have gone into preparing the university for the delivery of online learning across all disciplines,” he said.
The university has cancelled graduations, is encouraging students to study online where possible, and is advising social distancing in other face-to-face classes.
Universities Australia chief executive, Catriona Jackson, acknowledged that the tertiary sector’s response to the virus had varied, but said all universities were adhering to advice from officials and praised the federal government for providing a “clear set of requirements”.
“These are prudent, measured steps designed to safeguard students, staff and their communities. At the same time, we are trying to minimise disruption to students’ education,” she said.
“Things are moving very quickly, and all universities have mobilised staff and students in what is a national effort.
“None of this is easy and we recognise the challenges faced by our students and staff. But it is vital that as individuals and institutions we work together to slow the spread of the Covid-19 virus and protect the community. People’s lives depend on how we respond now.”
