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Too Little Too Late, KTH’s COVID Response
Too Little Too Late, KTH’s COVID Response TEXT CARL HOUSTEN ILLUSTRATION REBECKA INGRAM MEME AXEL LINDBERG
When KTH published their response to the new restrictions. It leaves much to be desired. When the most recent restrictions were announced on the 10th of January, I watched the broadcast together with the THS Management Team. The Prime Minister announced that they recommended extra exam opportunities to be given to sick students in higher education, and we were all overjoyed. When KTH published their response, this joy was killed completely.
KTH announced that they had no intention of introducing new exam opportunities, which is still the case as I write this article. Instead, they referred students to the regularly scheduled re-exams: which really isn’t helpful at all. One of many reasons being that re-exams are not within the period in which SSSB (Foundation for Stockholms Student Housing) checks exam results.
THS President Teo Elmfeldt responded to this in a letter from THS, “We believe the decision is unclear and does not give reassurance to the many students that already have been forced to miss their exams, and that the news is too late to hinder desperate students from risking others well-being by showing up anyway. The re-exam period exists to give students another chance and aid them in keeping up with their studies, not as an all-encompassing pandemic solution.” So why was KTH’s response so late? You may wonder. Well, part of the reason is that KTH management, as well as faculties handling this, were on vacation since before christmas, their last meeting with THS being on the 20th of December. Not giving them the opportunity to respond to the restrictions announced just after they left for vacation. But really- what kind of excuse is that? A government organisation such as THS ought to be prepared for these scenarios - as they often are with their three-scenario plans for imposing various restrictions. This also meant that THS wasn’t given the opportunity to impact KTH in this matter until it was too late. Head of Educational Affairs Amanda Andrén is to this day hard at work to grant students extra exam opportunities to replace the ones they missed. During all of this we saw more or less constructive discussions among the students about extra exams and KTH’s response
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