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

during the exam period, mostly in Facebook-groups such as Legends of Tâmarrow and Kungliga Tekniska MEMES.

This spurred a petition to be launched, asking for “extra resources that would enable e.g. extra exam opportunities and the opportunity to take distance exams if necessary”. As of writing this article it has surpassed 900 signatures, which is fairly significant. Osqledaren decided to start collecting our own data on the matter using a survey. A majority of the responses were students frustrated by the exam situation, many with different takes on the situation. Some wanted only digital examination, some only on-campus examination. Others were simply asking for more exam opportunities. Many answers were just venting their sadness or frustration with the situation. Suffice to say many students are unhappy with their situation. Below are a few of the responses:

"Jag har inte själv upplevt detta men hört och läst om folk som varit med om det. Jag tycker att det är helt knäppt att tentor hålls på campus utan extratillfälle (1 eller 2 veckor efter) eller möjlighet till zoomtenta. De som tar sitt ansvar och missar en tenta pga symtom kan förlora sitt boende eller CSN. Om inte annat bidrar det till en högre stressnivå att kanske nästa period ha 3 eller mer tentor. Det känns som att alltihop blir en ond cirkel och jag känner mig oerhört sviken av KTH som inte tar större ansvar i detta. Både för smittspridningens skull men även för studenternas skull."

“Såg inte alla diskussioner som blossat upp på Facebook och andra ställen förrän nu när tentaperioden är slut. Jag blir frustrerad över debattklimatet. Vågar inte säga öppet att jag tycker KTH gör helt rätt när de följer FHM:s rekommendationer istället för att hitta på egna regler. De 1,5 åren med distansundervisning vi haft var inte kul och tentor utan fuskmöjlighet går inte heller att göra på distans.”

"Jag är rädda att hamna bredvid någon på tentan som är där trotts positivt covid test för att de känner sig tvingad att skriva tentan pga risken att bli hemlös."

“Vill inte gå tillbaka till salsföreläsningar för det är lättare att haffa över zoom”

What did we learn from this? KTH didn’t, and still isn’t listening to students in this matter. Even despite so many students raising their voices and THS making their demands clear.

Are our demands unreasonable? I don’t think so. Then why aren't our pleas heard? We ought to recieve an explanation at the very least. Throughout this KTH has done nothing but ignore students being affected by this. What can you do if you failed some exams due to a covid infection? We spoke to representatives from SSSB and CSN (The Swedish Board of Student Finance) and asked them about exemptions being given for covid-related reasons. The interviews were in Swedish and have been translated.

First we spoke to Anita Andersson, representative for the housing delegation in SSCO (Stockholm Federation of Student Unions) as well as their vice president, Emilia Kaufeldt. SSCO is the governing body of SSSB.

How do you get an exemption for missing exams for covid-related reasons?

- There is no general rule, every case is treated separately. Basically you need a positive test result and prove that it coincided with the exam date, answers Andersson.

- We go through tons of applications with varying personal reasons and need to judge everything case-by-case, Kaufeldt comments.

How many students apply for exemptions, and how many are approved?

- We have been generous with covid-related applications. In normal cases you need to be able to back everything up with papers from the healthcare system. During covid quite a few applications have been due to exams being postponed, in these cases a confirmation from the school is enough.

- We can see that students taking fewer courses or studying 50% have been hit the hardest, adds Kaufeldt.

We also spoke to Sophia Beyer Rankila, press secretary at CSN. The description she gave of the process to gain exemption was similar to the response from SSCO. She wanted to encourage writing personal letters to describe your case and attach a positive test result or sick application to Försäkringskassan (eng; Swedish Social Insurance Agency) that covers every exam opportunity that has been given.

CSN does not have statistics of how many people apply for exemptions for covid-related reasons either, but they claim that there aren’t more applications than previous years and that there are about as many people passing their courses.