The lecture will still follow the student online

Spoiler for students who still hope for normal lectures after the summer: that’s not going to happen. Even if there is a vaccine against corona. The future of higher education is “blended”, according to a survey of NRC long universities and colleges. Also heard a lot: “hybrid”. It means the same thing: students now receive a mix of online and physical education.

What does this hybrid future look like and what does it mean for students who will be sparsely welcome back on campus from 15 June? Almost without exception, anyone who submits the question to higher education administrators will first hear a hymn of praise for the flexibility of their own organization. The lightning-fast transformation to online education is no less than “a little miracle,” they say. Before a corona meeting for years about the digitization of education had been fruitless, now universities and universities of applied sciences started it up in the middle of March in a few days. Successfully: almost all education went on, except practicals.

The transformation is ongoing, thinks Rutger Engels, rector of Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR). “This is a move that you cannot reverse.” That is not a problem, he thinks. In fact, it can strengthen education and make it more effective. “Students are very good at preparing seminars online, which makes the live meetings of a better quality. You will then get more out of the working groups. ”

However, online education is not a saving measure. Several studies that are being carried out at universities and universities of applied sciences these weeks show the same picture: both students and teachers are exhausted and miss real contact with each other.

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Fifty-fifty

“Students are quite positive about online education and greatly value their teachers,” said Alex Tess Rutten, president of the National Student Union. “But it really is not a full-fledged replacement for on-campus education. I am a little afraid that “hybrid” means that it will soon be fifty-fifty. We are shocked by that. ”

Rutten sees many concerns among her supporters: about study delay and the financial consequences of this and about ‘increasing study pressure’, because lectures have sometimes been replaced by assignments that students have to make at home and that take much more time.

This picture is in line with the first results of the ‘crisis monitor’ of the University of Amsterdam (UvA): about half of the students are concerned. “They are uncertain,” says Geert ten Dam, chairman of the UvA’s Executive Board. “How am I going to finish this year? What will it look like next year? ”

“Our students are gloomier and experience a higher study pressure since we only teach online through corona,” says Rector Engels of the EUR. Minor nuance: “We are not sure whether this is due to corona, but if we compare these research results with previous data on the well-being of our students, we do see an upward trend when it comes to negative feelings.”

Academic training

Whatever the board members determine: most students are reasonably satisfied with online education in itself. “Surprisingly, satisfaction with education does not differ from other years,” says Jan Bogerd, chairman of the board of Hogeschool Utrecht (HU). “But there are also concerns, especially among students who cannot study well at home. We try to get them to the campus as much as possible. ”

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Geert ten Dam would like to welcome all students back on campus as soon as possible. “That’s where the real academic education takes place.” Besides being chairman of the board, Ten Dam is also a professor of educational science and knows from this expertise that you cannot replace the interaction between student and teacher with lectures via Zoom. In many ways, online education is impoverished, says Rector Frank Baaijens of Eindhoven University of Technology (TUE). “It doesn’t matter professionally, but you miss the added value of being together, discussing together, learning from each other.”

Strict conditions

However, when the first students and lecturers are welcome on campus again on 15 June, there is still little physical contact. The conditions are strict: keep a meter and a half away and do not travel to campus during rush hour.

Where ‘rush hour’ should be interpreted broadly: the cabinet may only provide education on campus between eleven o’clock in the morning and three o’clock in the afternoon. To the dismay of universities and colleges: because keeping a distance of one and a half meters and a margin of only four hours, that is very tight.

Ten Dam of the UvA believes that this has not been carefully considered. “With us, 40 percent of the students come to lectures by bicycle. Why shouldn’t they be taught in the morning? We have to think much smarter about what is possible. ” Customization, also advocate the other drivers who each call this puzzle a “logistical nightmare”.

In their calculations, they all assume a scenario in which 20 percent of the total number of students can be on campus at the same time. That is why it remains at least until the summer holidays for tutorials, thesis supervision and catching up on missed practicals on campus. Some institutions, such as the Hogeschool Utrecht, are planning to spread the education over the evenings and to use Saturday to catch up on as many lessons as possible before the new academic year starts in September.

Freshmen priority

And after the summer? “It’s a matter of looking at coffee,” says Rianne Letschert, rector of Maastricht University. “We still know so little, there are so many scenarios. We try to do as much as possible on campus, supplemented with online education. ” Lectures, say almost all directors, will in any case only take place online until January. Only practical education and tutorials will be held on campus again.

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First-year students are given priority. “We want to bring them to the campus as much as possible,” says Engels of the EUR. “The bond in the first year is very important.” It is even an important predictor of study success, says Geert ten Dam of the UvA. “If you are not rooted in Amsterdam as a new student, the chance of dropping out is greater.”

That is why all universities and universities of applied sciences try to set up an alternative introduction time for prospective freshmen within the rules of the one and a half meter society. Parties with more than a thousand people are not included, but “picnics with small groups in the park” are possible. Ten Dam: “The social cement is going to be forged anyway.”