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| A university campus in Seoul is livened up with students, Tuesday, as the country adopted the "Living with COVID-19" scheme the previous day, allowing in-person lectures again. Yonhap |
By Bahk Eun-ji
Although the country has begun its "Living with COVID-19" strategy, meant to phase out virus restrictions gradually, many universities are struggling to resume in-person lectures.
Starting with Seoul National University last month, many universities in the capital have been resuming in-person lectures gradually, but some schools have decided to maintain their current teaching methods for the remaining portion of the semester, fearing a possible spike in COVID-19 infections.
The fall semester has already passed the halfway mark, and students living outside Seoul and taking online classes have faced sudden problems finding housing in order to attend classes in Seoul.
As of Oct. 1, 25.2 percent of universities were conducting in-person lectures, while 30.2 percent had chosen hybrid courses, a mixture of in-person classes and remote teaching, and the biggest proportion, 44.6 percent, were providing remote classes.
The proportion of in-person classes increased by 4.1 percentage points from early September, but remote teaching has continued as well, after being practiced for nearly two years.
On Oct. 8, when the nation's vaccination rate passed 70 percent, the Ministry of Education sent an official letter to universities across the country requesting cooperation in expanding in-person classes.
Accordingly, Seoul National University moved some of its online lectures back to in-person, and many universities in Seoul, including Korea University and Yonsei University, have allowed in-person classes for courses with small enrollments of less than 50 students.
Since these universities have expanded face-to-face classes only for courses with small numbers of students, they believe they can control the spread of infection among students by abiding by social distancing measures.
However, some universities have decided to provide only remote lectures for the fall semester, due to concerns about a possible increase in coronavirus infections on campus, as social distancing restrictions are eased in line with the government's "Living with COVID-19" scheme.
Officials at universities in Seoul that are sticking with remote classes this semester say that students living in provincial areas will inevitably experience major inconveniences if lectures are switched to in-person in the middle of the semester.
"There will be no additional expansion of in-person courses other than those that were decided at the beginning of the semester, because many students would then go through the inconvenience of having to move near the university," said an official of Konkuk University.
He said that if the university were to switch from remote to in-person classes in the middle of the semester, students in provincial areas won't be able to continue their attendance, as they are not living in housing near the university, such as dormitories or rental housing.
One of the reasons that they decided not to expand in-person classes was the university's location in a busy part of Seoul with a large floating population of people coming in each day, the Konkuk University official said.
Hongik University, located in another busy and often crowded part of Mapo District, has decided not to offer in-person teaching for similar reasons.
The school is wary of the spread of infection to the extent at which it has assigned only one student to each double room in its dormitories. Therefore, it would be impossible to expand face-to-face classes suddenly.
"The academic calendar set at the beginning of the semester is also a promise between professors and students, so it's difficult to change in the middle of the semester," a Hongik University official said.
"As it is something that requires agreement with the students, it cannot be changed easily just because the education ministry issued guidelines. We cannot tell students living in the provinces to come up in the middle of the semester while concerns of infections are still lingering," he said.
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