“What about us?” The words spoken by many University students during lockdown.

If you’ve read, watched or heard the news recently, you would know that schools and colleges are being graced with leniency and changes to their exams. Isn’t that great? You know, since they’re not learning the same from online teaching, we can all agree that’s fair right?

Now, have you noticed the lack of guidance for University students? The ones who are paying £9250 a year for a few Zoom call’s each week.

University students are the ones who’s grades matter most. At the end of the day if our grades slip our future prospects will simply disintegrate, but who cares? Apparently, nobody.

Each week my university emails with a Covid-19 update, which typically states “we are awaiting further guidance from the government”. Useful.

In each big announcement made by the blondie himself, Boris Johnson, he mentions primary schools, high schools and colleges, but NEVER universities! My question is: why?

Previously, way back in time to the first lockdown, which started in March 2020, students at most universities were granted a safety net – which meant that you wouldn’t score any lower than the grade you were previously working at – since we were not receiving adequate teaching and exams were all over the place, this was a huge relief to many.

Now, here’s the crazy part… The situation is still the same! Only now, nobody seems to actually care. There’s no safety net, no leniency and simply no understanding or empathy towards students at all.

Instead, we are left in the dark, with an added bonus of rent bills for a house we can’t live in since it is now illegal to travel.

Students are constantly being dragged in the news as key spreaders of the virus since we all just can’t stop partying during lockdown, apparently, which is simply not true at all.

Yes, some dumb students have been known to throw a party during lockdown, but so have other people; adults, youths and celebrities, but the news just has to focus on the students as the pinnacle of blame.

Personally, I feel students deserve more at this time. None of us want to fail our degree, or score lower due to the current restrictions, just like the kids in school don’t want to fail either. A simple safety net would do us justice.

We need support too.