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Eva Eliadou Papadopoulou, Southampton Socialist Party

Covid cases are surging across university campuses. I’ve never known this many people who have tested positive.

We expected the university to move the in-person January exams to online assessments. The university has not organised any in-person exams since the begining of the pandemic in early 2020. But there has been no such announcement. This is shocking.

Consequently, angry students organised a petition for online assessments through the student union, and a subsequent all-student vote. Covid cases would spread if a large number of students sat exams in an enclosed space.

Many students live in crowded halls, or have work responsibilities that cannot be avoided for financial reasons. So avoiding exposure to Covid in the lead-up to exams is impossible.

The turnout for the vote has been impressive. Now, we’re waiting for a meeting with the student union and university management for our voices to be heard and action to be taken that aligns with what students democratically voted for.