Staff and student safety must be guaranteed before colleges can reopen, trade unions have said as they set out five tests that must be met by government and colleges.
Unions representing staff working in further education colleges have called for stringent hygiene measures, protection for vulnerable people and isolation for all suspected cases to avoid colleges becoming COVID-19 hotspots.
The unions said that social distancing plans had to extend beyond the classroom to cover things like travelling to and from college and socialising. To help deal with those challenges, they said that staff and students who can work from home should continue to do so.
The unions were responding to government guidance setting out how some students may return to face-to-face teaching in colleges from 1 June. The guidance stated that: “We will ask secondary schools, sixth form and further education colleges to offer some face-to-face support to supplement the remote education of year 10 and year 12 students who are due to take key exams next year, alongside the full time provision they are offering to priority groups.”
Unite national officer Siobhan Endean said: “Unite workplace representatives are at the forefront of dealing with the COVID-19 crisis in the education sector. These five tests set out a clear roadmap to reopening at a time when the health and safety of all staff, students and others can be assured.
“Risk assessments are crucial to this and can be carried out effectively where Unite members remain central to the process, with appropriate adjustments being made, enforcement in place and provision of PPE where necessary to ensure the ongoing health of all involved.”
University and College Union General Secretary Jo Grady said: “Staff and student health is the number one priority and nobody should be going back to college until it is safe to do so. The government needs to work us to address the national challenges, while individual colleges should work with their local union reps to address the unique challenges they will face”’
GMB National Officer Stuart Fegan said: “The public expects the government to put in place all reasonable steps to ensure the safety of students and workers in further education institutions. What the joint trade unions are calling for in these five key tests is reasonable, proportionate and wholly necessary.”
National Education Union Joint General Secretary Dr Mary Bousted said: “Safety has to be the overriding concern. Planning for wider reopening should focus on ensuring safety is assured if and when the college reopens, not on meeting Government deadlines which may well prove unrealistic”’
UNISON National Education Officer Leigh Powell said: “Managers and unions must work together to make colleges safe places to work and study. Cutting corners by skimping on full risk assessments and rigorous cleaning regimes, or limiting provision of protective equipment, risk pushing us back to square one. Staff and students need to be know that everything that can be done to protect their health has been done.”
The five tests
Test 1: Much lower numbers of COVID-19 cases
The new case count must be much lower than it is now, with a sustained downward trend and confidence that new cases are known and counted promptly. And the Government must have extensive, open and transparent arrangements in place for testing, contact tracing and isolating those with COVID-19 symptoms.
Test 2: A national plan for social distancing
The Government must have a national plan in place which includes parameters for both appropriate physical distancing and safe levels of social mixing in all further education settings. To help ensure physical distancing during travel and at colleges, all staff and students who can work and study from home must continue to do so.
Test 3: Comprehensive testing
Comprehensive access to regular testing for students and staff, with isolation for all suspected cases, to ensure colleges don’t become hotspots for COVID-19. In addition to routine testing, protocols to be in place to ensure testing across whole college sites and other non-college work-based learning sites whenever a confirmed case of COVID-19 occurs.
Test 4: A whole college strategy for health and safety
Risk assessments and safe ways of working for all tasks and spaces within a college should be established with relevant staff and unions in advance. This should include regular deep cleaning and stringent hygiene measures. Where PPE is identified as required by risk assessments, supplies of these are secured before re-opening of affected areas. Strategy to be clearly communicated to all stakeholders.
Test 5: Protection for the vulnerable
Vulnerable staff, and staff who live with vulnerable people, must work from home, fulfilling their professional duties to the extent that is possible. Plans must specifically address the protection of all staff, students and members of their households who are vulnerable to COVID-19.
Yeah but, no but, the last thing you are gonna hear about is “Fit-Testing” your DSE for ACCESSIBILITY whether returning to the educational estate or working from home eye-strain, computer vision syndrome or screen fatigue is still going to account for an average 20% loss in accessibility or productivity and “carrying-on regardless” predictably result in myopic or asthenopic disease or monocular adaptations as one eyes function is suppressed to reduce the 3D eye-strain over-exposed to the near or close-up use operation of sub-optimal display screen ergonomics.
We totally agree as the workplace with ALL the equipment, even including the canteen table & chairs. paperwork, pens etc has to be free of Coronavirus and even other germs may have settled & multiplied during the lockdown.
Working in the Higher ed (University) sector we’ve been fighting against the usual suspects who wish to reopen as soon, and cheaply, as possible, those Academic’s who are shareholders in space renting spin-outs especially. We note USHA and UCEA have been rather lacking in issuing guidance to the sector, our head of Health and Safety and former chair of USHA, along with our VC and current chair of UCEA have not shown much effective leadership at the local level either, it took a fellow Union rep kicking off to wake them and the Universities higher management up to the problems… Read more »