“We are still waiting for instructions from the Ministry of Education. Unfortunately, the resort has not yet created any framework and boundaries within which we could proceed,” said Danuše Nerudová, Rector of Mendel University in Brno.

According to her, one of the ways to traditional teaching at universities is vaccination. A week ago, the Czech Rectors’ Conference (CRC) invited students to do this. According to the CRC, vaccination is the most effective way to protect the health and lives of all citizens and at the same time enable full-fledged education in the coming semester. In addition, the available information shows that, for example, staying in dormitories will be directly conditioned by proving infectivity. In addition, it is still the case that from 1 September 2021, testing will not be covered by health insurance.

At the time of the epidemic, MENDELU was the first domestic university to switch to remote teaching. MENDELU started last year’s semester in in-person form, but then the school, like other universities, was closed by hygiene. “If we couldn’t do laboratory exercises even in block form, for example at the end of the semester, it would be a significant problem. For exercises and lectures, we are ready for full implementation online,” said the Vice-Rector for Educational Affairs Radim Farana. He added that for the third semester the university supports the preparation of teaching aids for blended learning and several subjects are already prepared in this way because these teaching aids are also advantageously used in the combined form of teaching.

MENDELU will still consider whether to follow the university traffic light introduced last year in the next semester. “I do not see it as real at the moment. We have to react to how the situation develops and the measures will need to be differentiated differently,” added Nerudová.