Groehling: Some Universities Will Probably Delay Beginning of Academic Year

Bratislava, September 7 (TASR) – Education Minister Branislav Groehling (Freedom and Solidarity/SaS) in an interview for TASR has said that some universities will probably delay the beginning of the academic year 2021/2022 and set their own conditions for dormitories run by them, too.

According to Groehling, the COVID automaton for universities was set up so that it was possible to teach in classrooms as long as possible. “Concerning the hybrid education that is being presented by universities, it has been set so that it will be impossible for 1,000 students to attend a lecture in a lecture-hall at a higher stage [of the COVID automaton], but the lecture will be delivered remotely,” stated the minister. Concerning seminars and practical training, it will be set so that they can be held in a standard way (in classrooms).

Groehling said they have been supporting vaccination as part of the “For Open Schools” campaign. “We offered mobile vaccination teams that travelled, for example, to Nitra where teachers and university students, including foreign ones, could be inoculated,” said the minister, adding that the vaccination rate has increased in this way along with the safety of university education. He said that education at medical universities can take place in classrooms at all stages of the COVID automation, as was the case in the previous period.

Organisation and operation of universities will be governed by universities themselves. However, the ministry recommends universities to hold lectures and lessons in classrooms and lecture-halls wherever the epidemiological situation allows for it.