Of all the consequences of Covid-19 for daily life and for the health and wellbeing of whole populations, education has not escaped its trials.
The teacher in front of a class has become the teacher on a screen. Although online teaching is far from unknown, many who are now having to resort to it have had little or no experience of it in the past. The demands on them and their institutions have been massive.
As an anatomist, I have followed closely the consequences of this transition for anatomy teaching to medical and other health science students. This is a particularly challenging area, with its practical classes as well as dissection of human bodies. The loss of access to body donations has been keenly felt by staff and students, alongside the multiple forms of disruption to students’ studies. Unfortunately, the ethical repercussions are easily overlooked.
We need to ask if all those involved in the changes have been shown equal concern and respect. The aim should be to ensure that physical, psychological, social and economic harm is reduced to a minimum, and that all are treated with fairness. Often overlooked is the importance of reciprocity, where those who are asked to take on greater burdens, as in staff adapting teaching to an online mode, are adequately supported and rewarded.
And are students and staff treated as moral equals and appropriately respected?
The ethical obligations are many, including providing for the welfare of students, taking account of the increased workload of staff, ensuring the availability of adequate resources (for students and staff), and guaranteeing the fairness of invigilation and assessment.
Consider two of these.
The welfare of students revolves around the support provided in making the sudden transition from traditional to online learning. The aim should be to minimise any inequality resulting from the unavailability of resources in the home environment, the lack of quiet spaces for study, inadequate broadband speeds and computer facilities, and the lack of support at home and/or by the host university.
Various devices exist to assist students, and these include automatic upgrades of marks by, say, 5%, active online teaching with opportunities for discussion and feedback, and use of as much practical online teaching as feasible. Ethical practice will prompt an institution to provide as much educational and psychological support as can be provided for students, with especial emphasis on those who are disadvantaged, including those suffering from a range of disabilities.
Additional support and recognition for staff who take on additional burdens in online teaching is an ethical prerequisite. The fear is that where an institution is experiencing financial constraints, an immediate response is to reduce staff numbers (an imminent prospect in some countries).
Understandable as this may be, the university will be failing ethically if it ignores its duty of care towards those who have carried additional loads. The task of adapting teaching to an online mode has proved intense and highly demanding, involving a range of academic and technical staff undertaking work that is far removed from business as usual. An institution that fails to act reciprocally, taking its staff for granted, is failing ethically.
Support staff, including technicians, teaching assistants and demonstrators, will probably have been drafted into undertaking different work from that for which they were employed, but essential in the preparation of online teaching resources. They are to be treated with fairness, equality and respect and appropriately acknowledged.
A central issue for academics working in research-intensive universities is that the extra time devoted to teaching preparation inevitably takes them away from research, in addition to which laboratories will have been closed during lockdown. Although these flow-on effects will have been inevitable, they have an ethical dimension; staff should not be penalised for negative effects on research output. The efforts of staff to support students and the university should be balanced by an empathic understanding of the obstacles confronting staff.
Particular attention should be devoted to the disadvantaged, since normal degrees of support may prove inadequate in an online environment. Others may be disadvantaged by additional demands placed on them working in a home environment, where family responsibilities, including children studying at home, impose demands not encountered when working outside the home.
Evidence is mounting that female academics are publishing less during the pandemic, due possibly to the intersection of work, school and home life. The principle of solidarity stresses the sharing of burdens to ensure that those asked to bear additional burdens are supported in ways that protect them from suffering unfairly. The flip side of reciprocity is generosity.
- Gareth Jones is emeritus professor of anatomy, University of Otago.
