JYU will review its coronavirus policies on 26 January – aim is to increase contact teaching as soon as possible
Predicted development and the University’s aim
On 18 January, the Government decided to end the remote teaching recommendation of higher education institutions from the beginning of February. The University of Jyväskylä’s extended coronavirus management team will meet on Wednesday, 26 January to review the pandemic situation. The group will acknowledge national and regional restrictions in its situation assessment. The development of the pandemic in the following week will provide important information for decision-making.
The University of Jyväskylä does not want to continue the strong remote teaching recommendation any longer than necessary, considering the pandemic situation and restrictions imposed from outside the University.
If the development and forecasts of the pandemic will be favourable and there will be no strong regional restrictions in Central Finland, it is probable that the extended coronavirus management team will decide to cancel the remote teaching recommendation and start increasing contact teaching gradually from the beginning of February if that is possible in terms of teaching staff and teaching arrangements.
In addition to pedagogically necessary contact teaching, it is important to implement physical encounters that support grouping and social interaction. If teaching events are arranged by keeping safe distances and following the mask recommendation, they are low-risk activity for the spreading of the virus. However, it is clear that also partial remote teaching will continue especially for larger teaching groups and due to illnesses and quarantines resulting from the pandemic. To increase contact teaching and ensure the wellbeing of students, encounters of students will be prioritised when opening JYU’s activities.
Remote teaching recommendation aims to ensure critical contact teaching and the continuity of teaching
On 22 December 2021, the Government gave higher education institutions a strong recommendation to move to remote teaching until 16 January 2022. Because of worsening pandemic situation, the Ministry for Education and Culture guided higher education institutions to continue remote teaching at least until the end of January and pay attention to the regional pandemic situation when making decisions. On 17 January, the University of Jyväskylä decided to continue its remote teaching recommendation until the end of February. The aim of the decision was to secure the implementation of critical contact teaching and the continuity of remote teaching in a situation with a risk of teaching staff getting ill.
Knowledge about the impacts of the Omicron variant to society has continuously increased, and the benefits, drawbacks and necessity of restrictions, for example, to secure the operating capacity of health care, have been discussed widely in Finland. Even though the number of infections has strongly increased, the number of serious cases of COVID-19 illness has remained reasonably low.
More information:
corona.information@jyu.fi
