After school, the university is also preparing to return to the classroom. “The semester that will start in September will be mainly in person,” is the announcement by Minister Gaetano Manfredi. But distance learning will continue in some cases “to guarantee – he explains – the right to study, for example, to international students or those who for family reasons cannot attend in person.”
IThe return of students and professors to universities “is a message for Lombardy and for all of Italy”, is the summary of the head of the Department of University and Research. In Milan his first public appearance after the pandemic. The occasion is the meeting of the 14 rectors of the universities of the region most affected by the coronavirus represented by the Crul, led by Remo Morzenti Pellegrini (Bergamo) also with the governor Attilio Fontana. But what will the return to universities from North to South be like? A safety protocol is being studied, proposed by the Crui (Conference of Rectors of Italian Universities), sifted through by the ministry led by Manfredi “and now being examined – explains the minister – by the Ministry of Health and the Technical-Scientific Committee”. The protocol in question “provides for distancing, protective devices, use of separate entry and exit routes, regulation of access times, management of flows for services such as libraries and canteens. A very organized system – he points out – which is then declined by the different universities according to the specificities”. Moreover, after the almost 300 million for the universities that find space in the Relaunch decree and the 1,4 billion destined for research, accompanied by the 1.500 more places in Medicine, the message is clear:
“We are facing a difficult economic crisis, we must not make students pay for this crisis. For this reason – says the former rector of the Federico II of Naples – we need interventions that support” above all “families and young people with the lowest incomes”. But among the thoughts of the head of the University and research, there is also the situation of Patrick George Zaki, 27, activist and student at the University of Bologna, who remains a prisoner in Egypt. “We will return to the charge with the Egyptian government”, assures Manfredi, who hopes for “a fair trial” for the boy, arrested on February 7 at the Cairo airport on charges also of subversive propaganda on Facebook. And not only that. The minister preaches optimism on another front: “I am confident that we will have foreign university students in Italy in September”, also because “the signals we have for pre-registrations are not negative”. Meanwhile, after the continuous wide-ranging discussions during the Covid-19 emergency, the university world gives the impression of all rowing in the same direction. The return to in-person classes at universities will be done “with care but without fear,” summarizes Ferruccio Resta, rector of the Milan Polytechnic and number one at Crui. “The second message is that the virus cannot take away our future. I would like to see the great programs – it is the hope – also include the great infrastructure of education and culture, represented by the backbone, from North to South, of the university system.”
Article published on 2 July 2020 - 19:55
