Hansard

I last stood in front of Parliament at the end of September to make a statement about supporting students through the global pandemic. Today, I want to provide a further update, specifically about supporting students to return home safely at the end of term for the festive holidays.

It is important to set out why education in our colleges and universities is so important at this time as we live with Covid until a vaccine arrives. This is probably obvious to many, but it is worth reiterating in the context of balancing all the harms that are caused by the virus: learning at college or university has a positive effect on students’ personal development and on their wellbeing and life chances. In addition, it is crucial to our ability to develop the trained professionals that we need to support key services such as health and social care. It is also important for our economic growth, in particular as we recover from the negative impacts of both Covid and Brexit, as it provides a pipeline of the talent that we need to continue to grow our country.

I appreciate how difficult it might be at times to keep sight of that in the midst of the global pandemic. I also appreciate how difficult it has been for our students throughout the pandemic, and for staff in their efforts to ensure that learning can continue this year. The population as a whole has had to adapt continuously as Scotland has responded to the crisis, and students have been no exception.

For some students, the experience has been particularly tough, given that it may be their first time away from home or they may have come from other countries or had personal circumstances that have exacerbated any challenges with which they have been presented. I remain grateful to those students who have adjusted and continued to strive to achieve the education that they rightly deserve against the backdrop of the global pandemic. Again, I also thank the staff who have helped them to get through it and to achieve what they have achieved.

After a tough start to the academic year, many—but by no means all—students wish to go home at the end of term to see their family and friends. Of the 240,000 students who are usually at Scottish universities at this time of year, we expect between 60,000 and 80,000 to travel home at the end of term. Some college students will also travel, but in many cases the numbers will be smaller.

That means that around 160,000 to 180,000 students will not change their term-time address or household. That will include international and United Kingdom students who elect to stay in Scotland over the holiday period, students who commute from home and care-experienced students for whom university is home. The broad range of estimates that I have quoted reflects how challenging it is to predict student movements.

That said, we expect that a substantial number of people will wish to travel. As with travel involving large numbers of the population as a whole, that poses a potential risk of virus transmission. Our challenge is to look after the wellbeing of our students by enabling them to return home while keeping them, and the rest of society, safe, and helping them to keep their loved ones and communities safe. That is no easy task, but we have considered it in detail. Today, I am announcing the measures that will support students who choose to return home to do so safely.

First, student welfare is of paramount importance.? College and university students will receive early and clear advice on how to stay safe, and those who choose to stay in university accommodation over the holiday period will be well supported.

Secondly, there will be staggered and early departure, irrespective of the level of the strategic framework in which an institution currently finds itself. Universities will be asked to make any necessary adjustments to scheduling to ensure that in-person teaching and assessment ends early enough to allow students time to get home at the end of term.? I see that Universities Scotland has highlighted today the staggered dates for the end of in-person teaching at Scottish universities. Those dates run from late November to mid-December, so Universities Scotland is not expecting a great surge of movement.

A third measure will involve taking extra care. We will advise any student who wants to return home for the end of term to voluntarily reduce their social mixing for two weeks before going home. That means going out only for essential reasons and exercise.? That is the advice for all, but it is most vital for those students who will be leaving from areas that are designated as being at a higher level in the strategic framework, and those who are returning to households where there are vulnerable family members. I am sure that students will want to do all that they can to ensure that they do not take the virus back home with them.

The fourth measure is testing, which has been raised numerous times in the chamber. Enabling easy access to testing for students with symptoms has already proven to be effective in controlling outbreaks, and we will now be including Scottish students in a UK-wide initiative to test some asymptomatic students prior to the end of term.?

The final measure in our plan is safe travel. All college and university students who are planning to travel home will be given guidance on how to do so safely. That includes following public health advice on the use of public transport. Where there might be issues with local public transport capacity, we will work with institutions and with Transport Scotland to enable safe travel.

We have also been working closely with the other Administrations across the UK to enable students to return home safely wherever they live and study. As members will all be aware, the UK Government and Welsh Government have also issued their plans, which are largely similar, today.

We will continue to work across the UK in supporting students, but we will do so with an emphasis on what is set out in our strategic framework. We will shortly publish a question-and-answer guide and more detailed guidance on the Scottish Government website, which will set out more information on the steps that we are announcing today. I have no doubt that the majority of students will want to act responsibly and will follow the measures that are being set out.

I turn now to testing. We recognise the particular concerns associated with students moving from one household to another for the winter break. As an additional layer in our work to support a safer return home, we will therefore be offering testing to students who are returning home. To do that, we will make use of a new Covid testing technology, lateral flow devices, which can provide a result in half an hour. The tests work by detecting antigens from the virus that causes Covid-19. Although those tests are not as sensitive as the gold-standard polymerase chain reaction—PCR—tests that we use for our main testing programme, they are able to identify a substantial proportion of cases, and they appear to be more sensitive when detecting people with the highest viral load: potentially, those who could be most infectious. In agreeing to set these measures in motion, we have quickly taken advantage of the latest advances in technology and capacity.

We intend to offer testing on a voluntary basis to all students who are returning home, based on local and logistical circumstances. As previously indicated, that will involve between 60,000 and 80,000 students but, to be clear, precise numbers will obviously depend on how many choose to go home and whether they choose to take up the offer of a test.

We are currently planning on the basis that two tests will be necessary, five days apart, with PCR confirmation for positives where appropriate, but that position may change as public health professionals and clinicians take account of the new evidence that is coming forward from England, where a number of pilot studies have been undertaken.

What does that mean for our students? It is important to be clear about what the tests can and cannot do. We will be using them to test students to try and find Covid cases. The students concerned will be asked to isolate so that they do not transmit the disease further, and their close contacts will be asked to isolate so that they, too, do not transmit the disease if they have become infected. The tests provide a point-in-time assessment of whether a person has Covid, so they are useful for finding cases, but they cannot tell us with certainty that someone is Covid-free, and they cannot tell us whether a person is incubating the disease. We are asking students in Scotland to get tested and to isolate if they are positive or if they are a close contact, so as to help us reduce transmission. That means that it will be vital for students to continue to follow all the other measures in place to reduce transmission risks, even if they test negative.

Guidance for students on what test results mean and on the support that is available to them will be provided. The testing will be delivered through partnership with Scottish universities and collaborating with the wider UK Government testing programme. We are all aware of the challenges surrounding establishing the system in such a short timescale, but we are absolutely committed to working in partnership to deliver it for our students.

Supporting students to return home is only part of the equation. What happens in semester 2 is the other key part. While colleges and universities have supported students in their learning to date, it has been far from a normal experience. That was not helped by the outbreaks of Covid-19 within student accommodation at the start of term. During that period, through extensive work with universities, the National Union of Students and other partners, processes were put in place to support student wellbeing. Work was also undertaken to communicate key messages, including explanations of how the current restrictions on social gatherings apply to students living away from home.

Infection rates in student accommodation have now substantially reduced, with all known positive cases among university students since the start of term estimated to be around 1.5 per cent. Data from 5 November shows that new cases among students identified each day by universities, based on an average from the previous seven days, accounted for approximately 2 per cent of the national total over the same period.

While we no longer have the same level of infections among students as we did at the start of term, we must of course learn from that experience. There are many challenges in determining the approach to balancing the four harms so as to support students’ education in semester 2. That is set within the context of considerable uncertainty around virus levels at that point and consideration of the strategic framework that will be in place nationally. We are reflecting on that as well as on the lessons from semester 1 as we further consider our next steps with the universities, the unions, the NUS and public health experts.

It is clear that the return after the new year will not be normal, and we will work with the sector to offer as much clarity for students and staff as we can in the coming weeks.

Covid-19 is a challenge for all of us—students included. We have all worked hard to support students in gaining an education this term and we have learned and adapted as we have progressed, as everyone else has.

I thank students for all their efforts and ask them to please keep doing all that they can to keep themselves and others safe, especially if they are making plans to go home.

Finally, I reiterate my thanks to all the staff and students the length and breadth of Scotland. I know that it has been tough, but together we will get through this.