A quarterly publication of AQU Catalunya

97

April 2020

The pandemic that we are all facing is having an impact on all types of activity, and higher education and the universities are no exception. One thing that is different however is the challenge facing higher education institutions to ensure that all students achieve the same learning outcomes that they would have done in a normal situation. This is easier said than done if not impossible, unless one gets to it and does something about it.

In Catalonia the eleven brick-and mortar campus-based universities, together with the Open University of Catalonia/UOC, are prepared, ready and able to work from home. Both teaching staff and support staff (administration and services) members have, in general, the technology to do their jobs away from the workplace. But what effect will working from home (teleworking) have on teaching, which is what most concerns the more than 200,000 students at higher education institutions in Catalonia?

One first needs to differentiate between what can be put across and transmitted in a standard classroom and what other things need to be undertaken and set in place in other types of learning environment. One might assume that everything that can be learned in a classroom-based situation can be implemented via video link, aside from the need for the appropriate technology and additional effort on the part of teaching staff and students.

What happens however in the case of activities like laboratory practicals, field trips and presentations? Institutions have introduced and are using teaching tools and resources to deal with this in the form of classes by way of video link, videoconferencing, virtual laboratories and solutions for managing the presentation of final-year projects so that they are totally public. There continue however to be challenges that are more difficult to resolve, such as work experience and placement, where consensual solutions, including the modification of academic timetables, postponement until the following academic year and teleworking, wherever this is possible, need to be found to the satisfaction of all of the stakeholders.

Solutions will undoubtedly be found for students who do not complete their studies at the end of this academic year, but what about those who will finish their studies in June and, from that point on, have been thinking about starting the next new stage in their lives? And what about those who find it difficult to gain access to online technologies? Within the entire higher education system, it may well be this latter group that is most directly affected and for whom custom-built solutions will need to be found.

Institutions are coordinating mechanisms to ensure that students who would normally be finishing at the end of the present academic year have the possibility to do so by ensuring that they acquire their programme of study's intended outcomes in terms of skills and competences. In this regard, one should bear in mind that these skills and competences are not acquired in the last two months of the academic year, but are the overall outcome of four years' work in the case of first degree/bachelor's programmes.

Quality assurance agencies in higher education like AQU Catalunya are responsible for ensuring that universities assure the acquisition of skills and competences by the graduates that they produce. This is a demand placed on us by society and we will continue to do so in all circumstances, bearing in mind the situation we are confronted with.