Image: Discott [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons
State science minister pleads with students to return after June regulation change
Baden-Württemberg’s research ministry has declared that the winter semester is to be held “in attendance”, meaning students are urged to return to full campus activity.
The declaration was made after Germany’s coronavirus vaccination programme reached those aged 30 and under, with many states lifting age restrictions and offering vaccines to anyone who wanted them. Theresia Bauer, Baden-Württemberg’s research minister, said this meant that universities would be teaching at least half of all courses in person at the start of the 2021-22 academic year.
“We are reversing the principles used during the Covid-19-affected semesters: presence is the rule, online additional,” she said.
Bauer added that decisions on which events would take place on campus would be related to expected attendance rates, with small events and seminars taking place “in presence”, while large lectures would continue to be offered online.
The plan builds on regulations passed in June, the ministry said. These regulations lifted attendance restrictions on events where a minimal distance of 1.5 metres could be maintained between participants. Universities in the state had said earlier that about 10-20 per cent of classes could be held in person while observing this minimum distance.
In situations where the required distance could not be achieved, events could only be attended by those who had been vaccinated, recovered from Covid-19, or were able to show a recent negative test, the ministry said. Under these conditions, groups of 35 students would be allowed in one room, and more if up to 60 per cent of the room’s capacity remained unused.
“With this, we have met the wishes of universities and students, and enabled them to make more courses happen in person,” Bauer said.
Some of these rules are dependent on infection incidence rates, the ministry said, and may be amended at short notice. But courses that cannot take place online, such as laboratory exercises, equipment-based research and exams, will happen in person next semester regardless of infection rates, it added.
‘Take advantage’
In an open letter to the state’s students, Bauer urged them to prepare for an upcoming term that would largely taught on campuses. “Come back to your universities, take advantage of the many opportunities for face-to-face teaching, make use of the services offered by the student unions—especially the student halls of residence—and contribute to making higher education something you can experience again,” Bauer wrote.
The minister said that many students had missed out on core aspects of student life, such as discourse, study groups and sports. She said the state expected further Germany-wide relaxations of social distancing rules in mid-September.
“The coming semester can open up a new quality of student life, full of university interaction and face-to-face teaching,” Bauer said. “The next system change will focus on the status of the vaccinated and recovered, and transfer responsibility for getting tested to individuals.”
She said that more reliance on students’ personal responsibility would only be fair, as by then every student in Germany would have been offered a vaccine.