University has been a hot topic of conversation this week after 45% of A Level students received top grades, but after 24 of the Russell Group universities have stated they will continue with online teaching for the next academic year, many of this year’s cohort of school leavers, otherwise known as the ‘class of COVID’, might look at a university prospectus and think: what’s the point?
It comes after a survey of university students conducted by Ivory Research has found that over the last year 61.4% feel they have missed out on face-to-face learning while 23.9% believe that remote learning has negatively impacted grades. Not only this, 35.7% of students feel that remote learning has negatively impacted their motivation.
This comes after 31% of students have had less than five hours of in-person teaching each week, with 45.6% of students spending over five hours a week watching pre-recorded lessons. Virtual teaching seems to have been the most popular method, with 29% of students spending over 10 hours a week on virtual lessons compared to just 2.4% of students receiving all their lessons in-person.
Maria Ovdii, Co-Founder of Ivory Research, said: “In the post-corona world, students may be spending up to £50,000 to sit in socially-distanced accommodation and watch their lectures online, so many students will be left wondering whether it is all worth it. After all the whole experience of going away, becoming independent, meeting people from across the country and making new friends has been taken away from them.”
“The prospects are pretty bleak for school leavers as COVID has seen the destruction of the UK’s creative sector. The economy may be improving but it still has a long way to go, so many students will be asking themselves: what is university for? Is it to make us better people, smarter people or just to make more money? That is the £50,000 question.”
