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1/ The grounds for no-detriment don’t have to be a lower quality of teaching or the fact students now have to browse online for ebooks instead of in the library for physical copies. The case for ND can be the general conditions of uncertainty & isolation under which we’re living.
2/ These affect everyone, though there are disproportionately adverse effects on already marginalised groups who would rely on campus to provide decent internet, quiet study space etc. & those who have caring responsibilities at home. This needs to be recognised more.
3/ Of course, we’d be even better at online teaching had we been able to prepare for that & not have to design formats that can switch back & forth at a moment’s notice. But by & large, the key ingredients of quality tuition are still there: subject expertise, pedagogical skill.
4/ Teaching staff are also giving a lot more time to support students individually & class sizes are smaller. Students also need to accept that their working futures will require them to work with people via online platforms. But this doesn’t mean an unchanged capacity to learn.
5/ What has been lost is the general sociality that supports the mental capacity for learning. This is only provided indirectly by universities & isn’t tuition as such. And I think it’s been a profound mistake to turn HE into an experience economy or frankly a market of any kind.
6/ Students aren’t consumers who’ve lost out on a service. They are citizens who, like many others, are suffering more than they needed to as a result of a government bent on protecting the interests of the capitalist classes & that has thrown the young especially under the bus.
7/ Government should foot the bill & they should stop bullying universities over “quality” & “standards”—which is really just a screen for class war—so that sensible safety nets can be put in place to recognise both universal & uneven impacts of global capital’s mismanagement.
(8/ The situation with lab & performance-based courses is obviously somewhat different & would require a different solution to recognise what has been lost, but again this is a result of government cornering universities rather than working with them to develop alternatives.)
