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Tēnā koutou
The move to Alert Level 3 next week will see the continued online delivery of the majority of our courses with a very limited number of our staff and students returning to campus. In line with the Government directive that all teaching and other activities are done remotely wherever possible, we have carefully selected only those courses where an element of on-campus tuition is vital to the successful completion of the course. Some of the essential courses will commence next Wednesday 29 April, while others will be rolled out over the following week.
In this evening's communication to our students, I have recommended that they go to Moodle for updated course plans. For the few students in courses that will be taught onsite I advised that more detailed information will come from their course lecturers in coming days.
In order to assist those students and teaching staff who need specific resources for their classes, we’re working with our Facilities Management team to arrange collection of necessary equipment, tools and supplies.
We’ll have stringent Health & Safety measures in place for the return to campus next week, based on the Ministry directives around bubble sizes, physical distancing and good hygiene practices. In addition, our student spaces, tools and other equipment will be thoroughly cleaned between classes and throughout the day. We’ll maintain a staff and student register so we can keep track of who’s been on campus for possible contact tracing reasons. We’ll also continue to stress what we have from the start – that if you feel sick, you should stay home; to wash and dry your hands thoroughly and regularly, and to cough or sneeze into your elbow.
Under Alert Level 3, all Unitec buildings and services will remain closed, except for Te Puna Waiora and those spaces being used for timetabled teaching, or for pre-approved staff and contractors to undertake essential services and work.
If you believe you need to access essential equipment to continue to work remotely during the Alert Level 3 period due to health concerns, we’ll be making a limited amount of loan monitors and chairs available for collection from campus from next week. Please use this request form which will be sent to your manager for approval. Please note that the key focus of our Facilities Management, Security and IT staff on site from next week is the safety and wellbeing of staff and students who are there to teach and learn, and we don’t want any more staff and students on campus than is absolutely necessary.
I know everyone is keen to know what life under the various Alert Levels will look like for us at Unitec. We’ve adapted a Ministry of Education document to pave the way for the implementation of other levels and hopefully address many of your questions. Please note that the information outlined in Alert Levels 2 and 1 is in draft format at this stage; we’ll obviously wait to finalise this once we know Government directives around any further shift in levels.
I want to stress again my immense gratitude for the incredible job you’re all doing at the moment, and to acknowledge the many challenges involved with working from home. I know the shift to online delivery of courses has involved a lot of extra work, but as always, our focus is our students and their learning. A special thank you to our staff who have remained working on site during lockdown, and those who are returning to campus next week.
Take time over this long weekend to relax and switch off, and look after yourselves and your whānau.
Ngā mihi
Merran Davis
Interim Chief Executive
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