With rising Covid cases and changing public health guidelines, Sinn Féin Galway West TD, Mairéad Farrell is urging NUI Galway to allow for students to sit their exams online.
This week saw UCC and UCD tak the decision to allow for remote exams this semester. It is understood that NUIG plans to hold in person exams and to allow students who cannot attend in person to defer their exams until next April.
As a result, Dep Farrell has written to the university president, Ciarán Ó hÓgartaigh, saying that this would “put huge pressure on students” as it would come just before their final exams for the year in May.
Dep Farrell [pictured below] has also been contacted by individual students, as well as student reps, who are “extremely worried” about sitting their exams” in a room with hundreds of people and then going home to their families at Christmas”.
.
She said they are also worried that some students will choose not to get a Covid test so that they will be allowed to sit their exam, rather than deferring them and having to sit them next semester.
“Students are at their breaking point,” she said. “They deserve clarity and safety when it comes to exams.I am urging NUIG to adopt a policy in line with UCD and UCC, for the safety and peace of mind for students, staff, and their families.”
