Third level students should consider not going home at weekends, says CAO chair
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The chair of the CAO and deputy president of NUI Galway, Professor Pól Ó Dochartaigh has said that third level students should consider not returning home at weekends to stop the spread of Covid-19.
“We've got to think about the movement patterns that are coming into society now with the return to colleges and return to universities up and down the country,” he told RTÉ radio’s Today with Claire Byrne show.
Prof Ó Dochartaigh said he recognised that many students were involved in their local sports clubs and had part time jobs at weekends to help finance their studies, but “in an ideal world” where it was possible students should consider staying in their college accommodation for the semester and going home “only occasionally.”
Doing that would enhance the student experience, he said, “but also we've got to think about the movement patterns that are coming into society now with the return to colleges and return to universities up and down the country.
“It's very different from going to school on a daily basis, and coming home, that might be a mile or two from you, if even that.
"It's very different than the work patterns, although some people do commute, but they generally do it on a daily basis.
“Students go on a weekly basis, they will be meeting others from all over the country and then going back into their home communities and that is a potential spreader, there's no doubt about that, for all of the universities, for all of the colleges in the country.
"I think it would be really important that students, if at all possible, were to stay in the campus, in the university, in the college setting, for most of the semester.”
Prof Ó Dochartaigh said that he understood this would be “a tough ask” especially for first years.
“We're not saying to people that you absolutely must do this, come hell or high water, but I think where anyone can reasonably do that and can cope with that, I think they should consider it, seriously.”