Oliver Dowden defends university student lockdowns

Oliver Dowden, the culture secretary, has defended the government's actions confining thousands of university students to their rooms due to coronavirus outbreaks, saying on the BBC's Andrew Marr show that it is important that students continue their studies with safety measures in place and 'not to give up a year of their life'.

The government has refused to guarantee that university students will be able to return home for Christmas after Labour said they must be allowed to return to their families over the festive period

The Guardian YouTube network:

[Batmantherd]

These people really are tools aren’t they

[dnuttwx]

Perfectly swerved the question on a reduction to fees, disgraceful!!!!

[TB.....]

Aren't the governments of the world really performing brilliantly. Everyone in every country are very happy.

[roby]

There is no justification for locking students down in their rooms. Period.

[rubensalsa]

Im a uni student locked in my flat, uni is mostly online, i got an accomodation on campus only for me not the use the campus at all, I think a partial refund would only be fair, especially when looking at the tuition side of things. £9, 250 for online learning, I'd say reimburse at least half of every term in which it is still going to be like this, instead of £9, 250 it could be £4, 625 for the year

[mason]

I really don't understand why university campuses are not exempt from these lockdowns. Most are literally self-contained towns with the healthiest people in the country. Staff are the most vulnerable at universities but all teaching is now online so that's not even an issue. I thought this lockdown was being directed by "science" not the will of draconian politicians.

[tiagoferreira]

"Not giving up a year of their life" really? How about all the other components of life that will bring human skills and will make your heart flourish, the ones you can only learn by living and interacting with ppl?the ones the government takes away from ppl in behalf of a program that no one understands?

[tomhud]

no one want to talk about how Florida has opened everything up and have decided to live with covid

[ThashaPN]

The day politicians will actually answer the question posed..

[jamesprice]

Dowden is like a dim department store floor walker

[johnwhite]

Make sure you remember what stances these mps take.

[youtubeadventurer]

Lockdown vulnerable people, not everyone.

[Andrewx]

"Give us liberty, or give us Covid"

[DauntingGecko]

What he means is...”yes, you are correct. We allowed youngsters to turn up en-masse and pay large sums of money to become prisoners of their accommodation whilst receiving little to no education which they thought they would get. This solves two issues for us government shills...one, we do not have to foot the bill by bailing out universities asking for cash and two young people can’t complain to us that they were forced to take a year out thus ruining their plans and making additional pressure next year due to double volumes wanting to go”.

[aayushnp]

Lock down is meant to reduce hospital congestion, hospitals in the UK are literally empty at the moment. Why do we need another lock-down? Just let the country move forward.

[BillyMustang]

What I want to know is that why are the number of Covid cases in Europe higher than the first wave now but we've hardly any deaths. What's changed???

[douglashouston]

Bull, bull, and more bull, from a government of muppets, who are they going to blame next week???
Maybe the vegetarians, ??

[duo]

"wasting a year of their life by not going to university" at this point it's far more of a waste of time and money by doing a year of university than not.

[zrob]

It’s about time that people stand up and stop listening to these nonsense rules.

[blackham]

I'm going home anyway. I can't join a society to make friends, all my classes are online and all I do is sit in my room. We paid for our own prisons. The only one who's benefited is the extroverted students throwing parties and bringing their friends round to the flat every night. I'd much rather do an apprenticeship