well some 40 universities in the united
kingdom have now reported cases of
coronavirus
forcing thousands of students to
self-isolate as the new term begins
many students are demanding to know why
they were encouraged to leave home
and pay for accommodation when much of
the teaching is being done online
aberystwyth university is the latest to
suspend face-to-face
teaching because of the pandemic after a
wave of complaints the scottish
government has now changed its guidance
to allow students to return home if they
wish although the entire household
would then have to isolate for 14 days
our education correspondent dan johnson
reports from manchester
day four of this freshers lockdown and
the funds running low
along with the food and behind the
fences are the young hopes of a student
life
put on hold having barely begun we were
saying here we've gotten like the
promise of oh yeah you guys can have a
bit of a
normal uni experience and then within
two weeks they were like nah
you can't um so we were kind of sold a
full stream
this is the start to term nobody wanted
but almost everyone could see coming
the government sent thousands of
thousands of students together to live
in a close proximity where they're going
to share the same facilities they're
going to use the same
kind of areas so if you kind of expect
to send all these people back and then
not to have that kind of a spike
even that's just incompetence and poor
planning each university should have
their own testing facility
and you could reduce the cases and
isolate individual houses as well
our house had no symptoms and no one
needed to get a test
but we're stuck in here now the
university says it will cover rent for
the next fortnight
and give students a 50 pound shopping
voucher with reserve delivery slots
there's denial here that students fees
were put before their welfare
what do you say to those who came here
on the promise of at least some
face-to-face learning
and now find themselves locked up
learning online feeling like they've
been misled
and they're now trapped well i don't see
these students as having been
misled or trapped actually i mean like
many people they're having to
self-isolate it's for two weeks
these students are on three and
sometimes four-year courses it's a short
part of their study
it's worth saying student life is
carrying on here to some degree
people are using the library keeping
social distance of course
but with cases being reported at other
universities
there will be more disruption at the
university of glasgow
supplies are arriving and there's more
food on hand
alongside deliveries parents have been
helping make decisions about the future
we talked about whether to defer
studies till next year but i think she's
decided is it going to be any better
next year we might as well just
carry on in edinburgh molly's been
isolating
but today she got the all clear they
seem to be quite all right with sending
us here and
you know changing what household we're
in to get us into halls
but when it comes to letting us go home
it's a huge problem to change what
households are in
if you decide you absolutely have to
move to your family home to self-isolate
you should avoid
using public transport and crucially the
other members of your new household
will have to self-isolate for 14 days
in belfast around 100 are in isolation
after 30 tested positive
at queen's university and in wales
aberystwyth is the latest to suspend
face-to-face
teaching there's more evidence today
this age groups hit hardest by the
pandemic
it was difficult enough getting here and
there's no easy time ahead
dan johnson bbc news manchester