Edinburgh moves undergraduate teaching online for rest of year

The University of Edinburgh has said that undergraduate teaching and assessment will remain online for the rest of the academic year, “with a small number of exceptions”.

The Scottish university follows the London School of Economics in cancelling in-person tuition for the remainder of 2020-21, with other campuses currently postponing face-to-face learning until Easter.

Edinburgh said that undergraduate teaching and assessment would continue to be online for the rest of the current semester, which runs until 2 April. After the Easter break, the rest of the year is made up of a revision week and exams.

The university said that it had taken the decision after the release of further Scottish government guidance aimed at controlling the spread of Covid-19.

There will be exceptions for “a very small number of programmes”, plus courses that have already resumed some on-campus teaching.

Edinburgh said that it hoped to resume face-to-face teaching on postgraduate taught courses as soon as possible but, in the absence of certainty about when this could happen, “for the vast majority of our postgraduate taught students all learning and teaching…will remain online until at least the end of February”.

The University of York has announced that it will move all classroom-based teaching online for the entirety of the spring term, following UCL’s decision to delay in-person teaching until 22 February at the earliest, and possibly for the rest of term.

The University and College Union and members of the Westminster government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) have called for all university teaching to move online for the rest of the current term.

chris.havergal@timeshighereducation.com