It’s been two years since education facilities including tertiary institutions in T&T closed their doors and transitioned to online classes in a bid to keep the COVID-19 virus at bay.
While a phased resumption of in-person classes at the secondary and primary levels began in the first and second terms respectively, tertiary level students are yet to return to lecture halls full-time although they have been given permission to return for practicals and labs only.
On Monday, Pro Vice-Chancellor of the University of the West Indies (UWI), St Augustine Campus, Prof Brian Copeland told Guardian Media, “We are targeting a full return as of the new academic year.”
Although planning for that has not yet started in earnest, he assured, “We will be prepared to retain the present arrangement if the situation does not improve as we anticipate.”
“In the meantime, even as face-to-face teaching proceeds online, we will continue to offer practical physical activities such as labs and field trips in compliance with the COVID-19 protocols,” he said.
Copeland said just as customers have to line up outside banks and groceries, UWI also had to ensure they abide by the applicable protocols such as mask-wearing, hand washing, and social distancing.
Regarding the latter in a classroom setting, he said, “Six-foot spacing between students automatically implies that classroom and auditorium occupancy would now range from 16 per cent for auditorium spaces (assuming there is two-feet wide seating), to 50 per cent maximum for most smaller classrooms.”
“In short, we do not have the classroom space to accommodate all students while observing the social distancing protocol.”
He said compliance mechanisms required for common areas was also quite challenging.
He said, “We are strategising on securely grounding our mode of delivery in a hybrid environment where classroom delivery including classes and tutorials would be offered in an effective mix ranging from 100 per cent face-to-face, to 100 per cent online.”
Copeland added, “The exact mix is a pedagogical decision to be made by the lecturer and department and based on an approved course outline.”
Pointing out one benefit of this strategy, he said, “We should be able to easily pivot from one modality to the other in an extremely short time from 100 per cent online if physical access is impossible or even 100 per cent face-to-face if the national ICT infrastructure fails.”
This he said, would ensure UWI had a much more robust and resilient platform for delivery in the face of any eventuality.
University of TT (UTT) chairman, Prof Clement Imbert, said tertiary institutions were able to easily transition to online when the pandemic began.
“The tertiary students were accustomed to doing things online before as classes were being uploaded and other certain things were being also being done in real-time,” Imbert said.
Registration was listed among the procedures that shifted to the online modality, while project submissions continue both online and in person.
He said the online infrastructure had been in place before as he added, “It was not difficult to go online with the teaching. Students were accustomed to doing things online so they would have had to have access to a computer…it was not too difficult.”
Admitting UTT classrooms featured seats that were very close, Imbert said it would be difficult to accommodate large groups in keeping with public health regulations. Pressed to say if UTT was looking at September to resume physical classes full-time, Imbert said these discussions will need to take place with both the teaching fraternity and student population.
