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Beginning of the Course of the
Catalan Universities towards the COVID-19: Evidence versus Negligence
Carme García-Yeste1, Ane López de Aguileta Jaussi2, Elena Duque2, Maria Padrós1
1)
Rovira i Virgili
University, Spain
2)
Univesity of Barcelona, Spain
To cite this article: García-Yeste, C., López de Aguileta Jaussi, A., Duque, E.,
& Padrós, M. (2022). Beginning of the Course of
the Catalan Universities towards the COVID-19: Evidence versus Negligence. International
and Multidisciplinary Journal of Social Sciences, 11(3), 60-87.
https://doi.org/10.17583/rimcis.11322
To link this article: https://doi.org/10.17583/rimcis.11322
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Beginning of the Course of
the Catalan Universities towards the COVID-19: Evidence versus Negligence
Carme García-Yeste
Rovira i Virgili University
Ane López de Aguileta Jaussi
University of
Barcelona
Elena Duque
University of
Barcelona
Maria Padrós
University of
Barcelona
Abstract
There is an
extensive literature on the importance of the use of scientific evidence on
teaching methods in higher education institutions. However, there is a gap in
how evidence is used for decision making that affects students and staff in
universities. This article is a contribution to the existing gap, making the analysis
of a specific case on how Catalan universities have managed the decision making
regarding their staff in the face of the pandemic situation with the COVID-19.
In this article, through the interview with managers and faculty from different
Catalan universities, it will be shown to what extent these university
institutions have opted for decision making in the management of the situation
based on scientific evidence or simply compliance with government regulations.
Keywords: Scientific Evidences, higher education, university, COVID-19, Dialogic
Public Policy
Inicio del Curso
de las Universidades Catalanas
hacia el Covid-19: la Evidencia frente a la Negligencia
Carme García-Yeste
Rovira i Virgili University
Ane López de Aguileta Jaussi
University of
Barcelona
Elena Duque
University of
Barcelona
Maria Padrós
University of
Barcelona
Resumen
Existe una amplia literatura
sobre la importancia del uso de la evidencia científica en los métodos de
enseñanza en las instituciones de educación superior. Sin embargo, existe un
vacío en cuanto a cómo se utiliza la evidencia para la toma de decisiones que
afectan a los y las estudiantes y al personal de las universidades. Este artículo
es una contribución a la brecha existente, realizando el análisis de un caso
concreto sobre cómo las universidades catalanas han gestionado la toma de
decisiones sobre su personal ante la situación de pandemia con el COVID-19. En
este artículo, a través de la entrevista a directivos y profesorado de
diferentes universidades catalanas, se mostrará en qué medida estas
instituciones universitarias han optado por una toma de decisiones en la
gestión de la situación basada en la evidencia científica o simplemente en el
cumplimiento de la normativa gubernamental.
Palabras clave: Evidencias científicas, educación superior, universidad,
COVID-19, Política Pública Dialógica
I simply wish that,
in a matter which so closely concerns the wellbeing of the human race, no
decision shall be made without all the knowledge which a little analysis and
calculation can provide (Daniel Bernoulli 1760).
With this quotation, the
article by Blower and Bernoulli (2004) begins, and so
did a conference by the Physicist, full Professor in Computer Science and
Mathematics, Àlex Arenas. In this same conference,
Arenas affirmed that the measures of containment of the pandemic that
Universities had taken without considering the data obtained through research
were highly dangerous because they seriously affected society (Arenas
2020 Oct 23).
The COVID19 crisis has
seriously affected the world, but in the case of Spain, with one of the best
health systems in Europe and occupying the 15th position worldwide in the
Global Health Security Index, the data on infection and death are very worrying
(García-Basteiro et al., 2020a). Slow
decision-making, reflects that the government underestimated the speed at which the
virus spread and its serious effects of it. The first case of COVID in the
country was on January 31, and the first death was on February 13. This shows
that the politicians and even the scientists who advised at the time failed to
respond to the alarm, as Horton, editor-in-chief of The Lancet (2020,
p. 68), pointed out. In a nutshell:
The failures were legion. First, there was a failure of technical
advice. Despite possessing some of the world's most talented scientists,
nations such as the US, Italy, Spain, France, and the UK were unable to harness
their knowledge and skills to deliver timely recommendations to forest all the terrifying human impacts of the pandemic.
(p. 83)
Horton (2020) described how the
arrival of the virus in Europe overtook many countries. Among them, there is
Spain, which decreed the lockdown on March 14th but with a poorly prepared
health system and a daily death toll of more than 700 people. Likewise, several
investigations have revealed the poor care the elderly who arrived at the
hospitals and care homes received (Merodio et al., 2020).
An editorial in The Lancet on October 16, 2020 (The Lancet Public Health 2020) stated that,
while the data on infections and deaths still needed to be fully understood, on
the one hand, the health system had been weakened and, on the other, the
complexities of the politics that shape the country had been revealed. In
August 2020, a group of Spanish scientists, through a letter to the same
magazine, demanded an independent investigation about the response that Spain
had given to the COVID-19. At that time, there were more than 300,000 cases,
28,498 confirmed deaths, about 44,000 excess deaths, and more than 50,000
health workers infected (García-Basteiro et al., 2020a). If the confinement had been
carried out weeks before March 14, it is estimated that the deaths would have
been reduced to 50% or more, as well as the number of people infected (Hernández, 2020). In a press interview, Richard
Horton declared that the Spanish government had the information needed to make
this decision, and it did not, nor contacted scientists in China who could have
provided advice based on their experience (Hernández, 2020).
Spain seems to have been the protagonist of many of The Lancet's
editorials where some of the errors in the management of the COVID-19 pandemic
are pointed out. One on November 2000 (Trias-Llimós et al., 2020) highlights the need to include disaggregated
data in the daily updates, as, since May 19, 2020, they have not been provided.
They add that "at the time of writing, age-specific data from the CNE is
given only in weekly publications (as Adobe PDF files), without geographic
detail or retrospective corrections, and with cumulative counts tabulated only
from mid-May onwards. Therefore, properly merging age-specific time series
after the first wave is difficult or impossible" (p. 576). It should be
noted that other countries, such as the Netherlands, Germany, the Philippines,
and Mexico, published comprehensive daily updates of cases and deaths,
disaggregated by age, sex, and geographical area. Without these data, it is
very difficult to understand the pandemic and to make correct policy decisions.
(Trias-Llimós et al., 2020).
The purpose of this paper is to show whether the decision on how to
start the academic year in Catalan universities was made based on scientific
evidence or not.
Dialogic Public Police vs.
the "Experts
Although scientific evidence
was provided by research in epidemiology, it did not translate into policies
that improved the situation caused by the COVID-19 in Spain in an efficient
way.
A distorted view of
what evidence is has been offered, showing that the interpretation of data and
the reading of evidence can be different and, therefore, that there are
different interpretations of what needs to be done (Schleiff
et al., 2020).
Research has shown
that the availability of scientific evidence does not easily translate into
policy decisions and that there are very complex relationships between the two
sides that make many policies unscientific (Head 2016; Mols
et al., 2020; Bogenschneider
& Corbett 2011; Sager et al., 2020). In the words of Head (2016), both governments
and political leaders are often more motivated by socio-political factors, such
as maintaining stakeholder support and engaging in media-framed debates and
management risks, than by scientific evidence. This situation poses a problem
because, even though there is an honest discussion about the importance of
using scientific evidence and huge amounts of money (from both public and private
funds) are used in the health field for scientific research, this does not
translate directly into policy guidelines (Grimshaw et al.
2021; Masood et al., 2020).
O'Donnell and
Nelson (2020) argue that it is necessary
to harness the power of the law to protect independence and of the scientific
process while making the scientific evidence more transparent. Policy-makers should be offered the best evidence available
while being made to understand that their decisions can lead to improving their
public acceptance, "particularly where behaviour
change is needed. This means that the processes for generating scientific
evidence must remain transparent, robust and
independent. (p. 675). According to scientific research, when the available
evidence is not effectively incorporated into decision-making processes, the
legitimacy of the approval of the policy measures decided upon is undermined.
In
order to make political decisions with social impact, it is necessary that these
are made following a logical conception. This conception is known as dialogic
public policies: "as those public policies that emerge from an equal
dialogue between decision makers, end-users and experts, and dialogue is based
on the scientific evidence that achieves the best results" (Álvarez
et al. 2020).
Based on this
conceptualization, the elaboration of effective policies does not only require
the participation of scientists, but also, directly or indirectly, the evidence
with which they work should be shared and dialogued with the population so that
the measures proposed are successfully implemented, both by political decision
makers and by the general public (Flecha,
2016). The researcher Álex
Arenas stated in this vein that: "I am not looking for them to pay
attention to me, but to take everything into consideration and to speak with
data and a scientific basis behind it (...) I am not presenting an opinion, but
the result of a calculation" (Aguilar, 2020).
Research and
recommendations from medical evidence show, along the lines of dialogic public
policy, that among the prerequisites for the COVID-19 restrictions to be eased
and enforced, the following are necessary for everyone: knowledge of infection
status, community engagement, adequate public-health capacity, adequate
health-system capacity, and border controls (Han et
al., 2020).
In addition, in
line with a more effective and dialogic management, 20 epidemiologists and
researchers in the field of health suggested, through the journal The Lancet,
the requirements and principles to carry out effectively and independently the
evaluation of how the pandemic had been managed in Spain (García-Basteiro et al., 2020b). In this proposal, besides
selecting a panel of experts supported by a scientific team in charge of
collecting and analyzing the evidence, it was proposed to include working
groups formed by relevant scientific societies, other professionals, and civil
society, offering them specialized scientific evidence in the field.
Qoronfleh (2020) states that
health, like other areas, is a human right, and as such, any decision must be
made on the basis of evidence that will provide better
health. There is a global recognition of the importance of evidence-based
health systems for achieving continuous improvement in health, saving lives and
responding more effectively to the needs of citizens (World Health
Organization, 2004, 2008). Science can
identify solutions to urgent health problems such as COVID-19, but only from a
public-policy dialogue perspective can most of these solutions become a
reality.
Based on scientific evidence, many
deaths could have been avoided, and less strict measures regarding lockdowns
could have been taken. The evidence has always said that it was necessary:
comprehensive
(and, in the extreme, universal) and effective testing and contact tracing
systems; provide information to individuals and local public Health bodies
promptly; create a sense of trust and responsibility; and put in place economic
and social support that helps to increase participation in testing, contact
tracing and adherence to isolation advice (Kontis
et al., 2020).
Evidence is necessary for decision-makers to
anticipate and identify problems, calculate risks and reduce the uncertainty
generated by decision-making in complex moments, but the participation of
citizens in a situation of equal dialogue is essential to develop effective
policies (Décieux, 2020; Álvarez et al., 2020).
"You Guys Are in Charge, but You
Don't Know. The Clamor of the Spanish Scientists in front of the Measures
Taken
Just as science, from Copernicus through Darwin to Einstein, has been an
exercise in the gradual erosion of human vanity the decentering of the human
being from our understanding of the world - so pandemics have eroded
governmental omnipotence. Nation-states have slowly had to succumb to curbs of
their power and authority (Horton, 2020,
p. 32)
Although the first wave might
have been unpredictable, the second wave in some parts of Spain was highly
predictable (García-Basteiro et al.,
2020a). The western world did not take the danger of COVID-19 seriously and
the small number of scientists who advised governments did not offer an
alternative to the dominant expectations. Horton (2020) wonders if they
really read the reports from China and listened or sought guidance from doctors
and scientists who had already lived through the effects of COVID-19.
It has been shown that the political process has failed. Although some
governments have claimed to be following science, the task of policymakers is
not only to follow the advice given, but to examine, analyze and question, and
dialogue with all parties. A lack of a team with a shared vision of values to
manage the pandemic has led to a lack of public confidence (Horton,
2020).
One of the problems
has been not listening and not showing humility to failure (Horton,
2020). This was said by the scientist Oriol Mitjà,
Associate Professor at the Germans Trias Research
Institute, head of the STI Unit of the Germans Trias i Pujol Hospital and Associated Researcher at IS Global, in
an interview that was very criticized. He stated that the Catalan Minister of
Health showed both a lack of knowledge to manage the crisis and a lack of
humility to listen to scientists (Planta Baixa, 2020). Even the Catalan
media tried to discredit the scientist instead of making a critical analysis of
the situation (El matí de Catalunya Radio, 2020; Rosel,
2020). Among the research that Mitjà showed in the
interview to exemplify this negligence, he explained that if a Spanish person
had lived in Germany during the first wave of the COVID-19, they would have had
10 fewer possibilities of dying, and if they had lived in Japan, 100 fewer
possibilities.
This failure,
supported by the data (Our World in Data, 2020) is not only an error in
decision-making, but an example of state negligence and a failure to exercise
the duty of the government, exposing citizens to serious harm. Thus,
"governments were causally complicit and responsible for these failures"
(Horton,
2020, p. 85).
One of the problems
to highlight is the confusion between scientists and "experts". This
has generated disenchantment among the citizens, who have seen how the same
"experts" who advised against wearing masks were the same ones who
later made mandatory to wear them. Mitjà reported
that the head of the Coordination Center of Alerts and Health Emergencies,
Fernando Simón, was not capable of managing a pandemic. For that purpose, he
referred to his lack of relevant publications and a lack of a consolidated
research career (Nació Digital, 2020 October 5).
A crisis such as
the one that COVID-19 has caused goes beyond a health crisis: it is also a
political crisis that demands the highest political level to protect the lives
of citizens. It is necessary to incorporate more scientists, but also a greater
scientific literacy to be able to govern, as, without this knowledge and
evidence-based decision-making, it is very difficult for citizens to trust (Horton,
2020).
Even in aspects
such as face coverings there is no international consensus, which shows the
influence that cultural norms have on the incorporation of evidence. Thus, this
fact does not help in making appropriate decisions (Han et al., 2020).
A group of 55
Spanish scientific societies with more than 170,000 health professionals
launched a campaign on change.org to collect signatures urging political
parties, among other aspects, to base themselves on the best scientific
evidence possible, free from political ideologies, in the face of the pandemic.
A national protocol with common criteria and with an exclusively scientific
basis should be drawn up (Change.org, 2020a). Also, the Real
Sociedad Matemática Española, in the presentation of
the white book of mathematics, asked politicians for greater rigor and
scientific culture (Rius,
2020).
The Role of Universities
in the Face of Scientific Evidence
Contrary to what one may
believe, governments are capable of making decisions
without evidence or relevant research (Jones, 2014).
Even universities, where knowledge, research, and critical thinking are
supposed to be their essence, have been able to make decisions without first
consulting the scientific evidence or the available academic literature (Jones,
2014).
In the words of
Jones (2014), given the
important role that universities play in our societies, both for social and
economic development and the high level of public and private investment they
receive, the decisions they make are key to social improvement. It must be the
universities who provide highly qualified human resources to public
policymakers, and not assume, as has happened in Catalonia, a government
decision that scientists themselves have reported as wrong.
Paltiel et al. (2020) carried out an investigation based on the
adaptation to a simple compartmental epidemic model to capture the essential
features of the situation university decision-makers were facing: the
epidemiology of SARS-CoV-2; the natural history of COVID-19 illness; and
regular mass screening to detect, isolate and contain the presence of
SARS-CoV-2 in a residential college setting. With this research, it would be
possible to prove, in the absence of an effective vaccine, what would happen
with the reopening of the campuses in September in the USA. It relied on the
assumption that the best hope was a behavioral-based strategy and regular
follow-up to rapidly detect, isolate, and contain new infections of COVID-19
when they occur. This research was based on the fact that
the opening of the campuses posed serious risks, not only to the university
community (faculty, students, and PAS) but also to the rest of society. The
authors of the research appealed for the responsibility of university
presidents regarding the impact of their decisions on the opening of the
campuses (Paltiel et al., 2020).
There is literature
on the importance of teaching practices in universities derived from best or
high-quality evidence (Smith & Baik, 2019; Jones,
2014). Moreover, universities, as Bourguignon (2019) states, are
one of the few institutions that can cope with the continuous drifts of hyperpartisan and interest-driven-politics. It is these
institutions that must become providers of honest knowledge brokers (high
quality and nonpartisan research) to improve policy decisions. However,
although higher education institutions have always been and should be an
example of defense and promotion of science and truth for the improvement of
society, regardless of political pressures (Bourguignon,
2019; Steinmetz, 2018), the reality in Spain has
been different. In some cases, it has been the students themselves who, out of
responsibility, have decided to self-confine and demand quality online
teaching, as has been the case with the degree in Social Education from the University
of Granada (Redacción,
2020).
Return to the University
Classes in Catalonia: The Context
As in most countries, the
2019-2020 academic year ended online at most universities due to the lockdown
situation in the countries. However, the debate arose about whether the
2020-2021 academic year should begin (face-to-face, hybrid, or online), at a
time when total lockdown had ended but contagion had not stopped.
In institutions like universities, it should be an obligation to work
based on scientific evidence. Nonetheless, the performance of the Spanish
universities, and specifically the Catalan ones, in the decision-making process
for the start of the academic year was not like that in all cases. Two main
reasons stand out, being the first one the submission to the power established
by the government through the so-called PROCICAT (Territorial Plan of Civil
Protection of Catalonia), and specifically the action plan for emergencies
associated with communicable diseases with high risk1 potential.
This plan was established by the Catalan government as a protection to the
transmission of COVID and as a support to what Public Health dictated for the
containment of the disease. It aimed to maintain the basic and essential
services for society and establishing the necessary coordination between all
agencies involved in the response. As will be shown in the results section, the
proposals of this plan were applied in many cases not taking
into account whether they responded to scientific evidence or not. The
second reason is linked to a discourse among more progressive sectors that
argued online teaching was a manipulation to sink the public university and
prioritize the private (Change.org, 2020b; Silió,
2020). As Mols et al. (2020) indicated,
the rise of anti-establishment populism seems to have generated a confrontation
among political professionals who are skeptical of scientific research.
Therefore, policy researchers now have another challenge, which is not only to
persuade policymakers of the need to operate by scientific evidence, but also
the public at large.
Methods
Procedures and Sample
Catalonia has been the chosen
territory for this research. There are 12 universities in Catalonia. 7 of these
are public, whereas 5 are private.
The participants of
the sample have been, on the one hand, the rectors or teaching vice-rectors at
the Catalan universities and, on the other hand, professors of some of these
universities.
To contact the
rectors and vice-rectors, an email was sent to the address provided by the
official website of the universities. In the e-mail, it was informed that a research was being carried out on the decision-making
process for the opening of the 2020-2021 academic year in the universities and
that the information would be used for the elaboration of a scientific article.
In some cases, we were asked the questions via email before the interview, to
be able to find the information beforehand. In the first place, an interview
was requested with the rector of the university. However, in some cases, the
request was redirected to the vice-rector of teaching (in 3 cases) and, in the rest, the interview was conducted with the
rectors. The three universities we did not do the interview with the rector or
vice-rector of teaching were the University of Barcelona (the rector's office
referred to the time of the elections in which they were), the University Abad
Oliva (which did not answer the email) and the University Pompeu
Fabra, which at first responded positively to the
conduct of the interview, but it did not materialize.
The interviews, due
to the COVID-19 situation, were carried out online on different platforms
according to the request of each university (Microsoft Teams, Meet, or Zoom).
Before conducting the interview, an oral request for permission to record was
made and the use of the data for the preparation of an article was reminded.
Table 1.
Rectors and Vice-Rectors who
participated in the interviews.
|
Position |
Code |
University |
|
Rector |
R1 |
U1 |
|
Rector |
R2 |
U2 |
|
Rector |
R3 |
U3 |
|
Vice-Rector for Teaching |
R4 |
U4 |
|
Rector |
R5 |
U5 |
|
Vice-Rector of Documentation |
R6 |
U6 |
|
Rector |
R7 |
U7 |
|
Vice-Rector of Documentation |
R8 |
U8 |
The
contact with the faculty of different universities was carried out through
academic contacts of the authors of this research. An email was sent to
different colleagues in different departments and universities offering the
option to participate in an interview. The interview was conducted with those
who agreed. They were sent an email with information about the objective of the
research and that the data would be used for the elaboration of an article. The
email had attached a consent form that they had to return signed, with their
agreement to participate in the research and for the data to be used for the
present article. As in the interviews with the rectors and vice-rectors, the
interviews had to be conducted on different online platforms.
Table 2.
Faculty of Catalan universities participating in the interview.
|
Code |
Category |
University |
|
Lecturer 1 |
Associate Professor |
U1 |
|
Lecturer 2 |
Aggregate Professor |
U1 |
|
Lecturer 3 |
Associate Professor |
U9 |
|
Lecturer 4 |
Adjunct Professor |
U9 |
|
Lecturer 5 |
Associate Professor |
U4 |
|
Lecturer 6 |
Associate Professor |
U8 |
|
Lecturer 7 |
Lecturer |
U8 |
|
Lecturer 8 |
Associate Professor |
U3 |
The
interviews lasted about 30 minutes and focused on three main aspects:
1) The
decision made for the start of the academic year in the different universities
(whether the face-to-face, online or hybrid option was chosen).
2) Scientific
evidence used for decision-making.
3)
Feedback from the university community on the decision taken.
Reviewing Documentation
In order to conduct the
interviews and contextualize the research, the protocols and documentation that
the universities have publicly displayed on their websites for the entire
university community were reviewed. In some cases, e-mails were also sent to
the faculty of the different universities informing them of the decisions taken
to deal with the pandemic and how to act. This information helped us to find out what kind of
information had reached the university community, and to compare it with what
the interviewees were telling us.
Some press releases
have been used to show some of the reactions at state level to the situation of
COVID in the universities, which has been considered interesting to reflect in
the article to contextualize some of the situations that have been experienced.
Results
The results show the reasons
why one of the universities did choose to make evidence-based decisions in the
first place and the motives followed by the universities that made the
decisions without following the evidence.
Beginning of the Academic Year
in the Different Catalan Universities
Of the cases
analyzed, only one of the universities (U1) opted for a course start with the
minimum attendance possible. This is the same university that, as will be seen
in the next section, has been the only one to claim to use scientific evidence
for this and other decisions linked to the pandemic.
In
the words of the rector herself, despite the reluctance caused by not going
ahead with the face-to-face classes of the university as agreed in June 2020,
she opted to make the data public on the university website, so everyone would know at all times what decision to take based on those data:
and
I also found within our own institution a certain reluctance to change a little
what we had done in June, but I think that after analyzing it and especially
after seeing these indexes of the probability of rebound. And, this has been, I
believe, one of the things more, one of the things that I think that we can
feel more happy about, that when it occurred to us,
listen, let's hang it on the web and every day when one enters, knows how the
situation is in all our municipalities (R1).
Once
the decision was made, the U1 rector sent an e-mail to the entire university
community in which, offering epidemiological data, the decision to reduce to
the minimum possible the presence on campus was made. As can be seen in the
email sent on September 11, 2020:
Last September 8, the rectoral team
and the deans and directors of the center were able to assess the current
situation of the pandemic and the incidence in the territorial area of the U1
after listening to professors Àlex Arenas and Antoni
Castro, experts in the field. Both analyzed the current epidemiological
situation, with values of the rate of confirmed cases per 100,000 inhabitants 4
and 5 times higher than the recommended threshold of 50 inhabitants, data that
they foresee will be difficult to improve in the next two months. Considering
this, they recommend us to reduce to the minimum the presence in our campuses:
this would significantly reduce the possibility of contagion, contribute to
minimizing the spread of the pandemic in our territory and avoid an eventual
paralysis of the face-to-face activity in a few weeks.
Among the arguments
for this decision, the same rector affirmed that she was doing it out of social
responsibility so as not to be responsible for the increase in cases of
negative behavior with the known epidemiological data:
Let's
say, what we wanted was that the university did not contribute, calling the
number of students that would be the usual ones on the campuses, to distribute,
also with public transport, with all that they had to take, moving around the
city ... to generate more noise (R1).
The rest of the
universities interviewed confirmed that they had chosen to have as much
in-person attendance as the pandemic situation would allow. As shown by some of
the responses from rectors and vice-rectors:
So,
what did we say we would do when we would return? The message was very clear,
maximize the presence and minimize the residence. Therefore, that we would try
from day 1 to make the maximum of teaching face-to-face, this was already said
by all the rectors and from day 1 we knew that the most sensitive group is the
first grade. And we guaranteed the first-year students, because we also had to
guarantee them in terms of registration, if the legislation allows us, if
PROCICAT allows us... First it would be in low density but everything
face-to-face. Therefore, we are going to split, we made a calendar from day 1
with everything first split to be able to do it in low density (R5).
Scientific Evidence in Decision-making in the Face of Power
Pressures
The only university that chose
to rely on evidence was the same one that chose to start with the minimum
attendance. The rector stated:
So, it's a
little... but I think the easiest thing to do has been to reflect on the data..(...) To see how the pandemic data was evolving... the
thing is that, what couldn't be is what you wanted to do, not taking it into
account, because the decision we made could make the red become redder or help
it become redder.... let's say because until now we have not been a noise for
the system, while it has been red and maroon, but this does not go down ... but
if we open all the doors with the maximum freedom, it would
mean that we would not contribute, but what we would do is accelerating the
conflict. And this has been a bit of a vision (R1).
The rector stated
that compliance with PROCICAT should not prevent universities from relying on
scientific evidence of epidemiology and that the fact that no scientific data
were being collected for processing the tool should be challenged, as expressed
in the following quotation. Alluding also to the social responsibility that the
university has towards the expansion or containment of the pandemic:
And there was this little premise of saying, there is a degree of
university autonomy. And this means that you perhaps don't have to do the same.
There was the moment when PROCICAT made the resolution of universities (...)
some guidelines that we received from health [Department of Health]. When we
received them, I said, both actively and passively, that I wanted them to
incorporate the rate of regrowth, because it didn't make sense for you to tell
everyone a face-to-face distance of one and a half meters, two meters and so
on, when you were in an area that was perhaps in green or orange, that in one
that was in red. And I was telling them, if you would let us adapt it according
to this, we would react and so on. It was not possible, well, that same idea
that we cooked up here among us, our experts and so on, let's put it into
practice. And also a little bit, as a social model, I
mean, why do we do it? Well, we do it out of social responsibility to the whole
community, not just the university community, right? (R1).
In
the case of wearing or not wearing a mask, even at the time when the protocols
of both the Spanish and Catalan governments stated that it was not necessary,
several universities opted for its mandatory use in university facilities. The
arguments were the scientific evidence on the effectiveness of its use in
preventing contagion. These are the statements of some of the university
officials on this subject:
Because
it has already been shown that the mask is a protective element. Therefore, we,
from the very first moment, even before the government said it, had already
agreed in June that we would go with a mask by all means,
always. Well, it was better then, when there was an appeal from the
Department, because we felt more supported that the initiative
we had taken was the right one (R1).
The
counselor said a day before that without the mask, we didn't agree at all
but...and there was no paper, it was just an oral intervention by the Health
Counselor, she said this and we didn't apply it (R3).
Some of the rectors
and vice-rectors also expressed the inconsistencies of a regulation that did
not have the voice of the university community and that in some cases made
proposals that precisely promoted greater mobility of students instead of a
reduction in their numbers:
We had
to do the theory classes online and the laboratories could be done face-to-face and I told the general director, when we had a
meeting, I told her: Chemical Institute cant do this. The objective of the
norm is not useful because the students have laboratories every day. If they
can come to the laboratory, I will make them come every day, and therefore I
will not reduce mobility. It does not make any sense, and what do I have to do?
The theory class before they do it at home and then delay the laboratory so
they have time to come because I live in X and so I can get there. It doesn't make
any sense, right? Therefore, a rule like this, which as a general
recommendation is good to make the rule, but it can be a disaster (R5).
Regarding
the answers on decision-making of the universities that opted for maximum
attendance, their assertions were based, not on on
scientific evidence, but on following government ordinances as we can see in
the following answers:
We have
to attend to the recommendations of the health units, the guidelines, therefore
we have to comply with them, that is what PROCICAT says, in some way we have to
put it into practice because we already have enough problems, we dont need to
generate more, therefore if there is an authority that commands, what we have
to try is to support them from the beginning, more or less support them because
if not... The image that we give to people in society, who have to be aware
that we have to follow what they tell us, is that this is fatal, so we do not question whether we like it
or not, we comply (...) I think that as a rector the institution has to follow
what is agreed upon PROCICAT and if you have any problems or something, you
tell them through the representatives of PROCICAT
(R2).
We made
our decisions based on what PROCICAT told us, I mean that we were very clear
about whether or not we agreed with those who told us (...) Therefore, we
always relied on PROCICAT's decisions and it is true that, even if we were
within the law, we took the most flexible band (...) We were very disciplined
with what Health said, which we considered being comfortably correct, and, for
those who considered that we were messing up, well... we accepted it (R3).
So, we
are referring to all this, not that we have done some bibliographic research
and from some meta-analysis with these evidence we do
it, right? We are governed by a series of measures approved by PROCICAT that
guarantee the most optimal conditions possible with the information that you
have at that time, right? (R4).
So,
based on what scientific criteria? Well, based on what came from PROCICAT
basically, we have always been aware of the Department of Health, through the
Department of Universities, well... the Department of Business and Knowledge,
which is the one that has competence in the universities and what the PROCICAT
told us (R8).
The Reaction of the
University Community
Through the voices
of the faculty members interviewed, we also wanted to learn how decisions were
received by the university community regarding the comfort of their teaching.
In
the case of the University 1 faculty interviewed, they explain their agreement
on how the decisions were taken because they opted for scientific evidence from
the beginning:
I think
that the measures taken by U1 have been supported by scientific evidence. In
fact, a contingency plan was created where people from different areas such as Àlex Arenas or people involved with the medical school have
participated. The measures taken have been focused on the prevention and
protection of the entire university community and the arguments presented by
the rector follow the same approach. That is to say, from
the very beginning, the measures have been argued in relation to the situation
we were living in and have been presented in a very transparent way (Lecturer 1).
In the
case of a professor at one of the universities where the rector was unable to
arrange an interview, she told us that, in her case, there was no information
on how to act following the evidence, which made her uncertain as to whether
she was doing the best job in the situation. In her case, the university where
she works opted for face-to-face teaching:
We have
received communications through notifications from the Deanery or the
Rectorate. They have sent us the protocols established by OSSMA (health and
environment safety office) and by PROCICAT, but I have no reference to
scientific research to justify the measures taken (...) Yes, I have given
classes to a small group of masters. I am not aware that I have seen scientific
evidence to justify this. (Lecturer 3).
The
professors of the universities that, according to the
interviews conducted with the rectors or vice-rectors, had acted in accordance
with the government's protocols, also expressed concern that the only criterion
to justify the decision-making process was PROCICAT.
In
the case of a U4 teacher, she explains that:
The
argument has always been to take into account what
could happen at the health level, which did appear in several places, that
because of the security issue, the pandemic, because of the situation, to
ensure the security of everyone, we had to act in this way. Although before
doing the interview, looking at the documentation and if it referenced something
scientific, all the quotes are institutional regulations of the Generalitat. At no time they looked for or quoted specific
things, medical or sanitary, despite the fact that a
management team was made (Lecturer 5).
Other
teachers also made statements in this vein:
The
feeling I have as a member of this university community is that even though it
was always... part of what came out in the emails was that,
you must know that we follow the recommendations of Department of Health at
all times, in the end I don't know if it's a phrase that has been put into
practice. (...) (Lecturer 6).
No...there has not been an accompaniment of
scientific evidence... This is what there is and this
is what has to be done... That is to say, not... They
are based on the decisions of our department of health that correspond to us,
according to them... But I tell you... I don't know about the security distance
that is being fulfilled in small groups, therefore I don't know up to what
point we are in a margin of... Clarity in this sense, I don't know... (Lecturer
8).
Several
professors also commented that one of the arguments given, not based on
evidence, was that they worked in a face-to-face university, so they should
keep it that way as long as it was possible:
The argument I
have been given is that U9 is a face-to-face university and that, if there is
not a situation that prevents it, it will continue being a face-to-face one
(Lecturer 3).
(...)
that we are not the UOC2... This explanation that I think in public
Universities in general has come out everywhere... Well, if the students wanted
a University like the UOC, they would already go to the UOC, we have to offer
something different blah, blah, blah... But well, this does not respond to an
argument of... In this case, it's not a scientific argument about health, but
rather... It's a drift towards another side (Lecturer 6).
We have
received emails from the rectorate and later from the deanery, saying that we
are a faculty where the face-to-face teaching is like our identity mark and
that whatever possible must be done to maintain this
face-to-face classes and not become a UOC or UNED1 (Lecturer 7).
To
affirm that face-to-face teaching must be maintained because they are not
distance-learning universities is another argument that is not based on any
scientific argument. This reinforces that, above acting on
the basis of data that contribute to the curbing of the pandemic, there
are arguments based on the belief of how the university classes should be are
used.
Discussion and Conclusions
Although, as has
been seen, Spain is among the countries with the best health system, the data on
infection and deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic do not correspond to this
healthcare infrastructure (García-Basteiro et al., 2020a).
Among
the main reasons for this negative situation, it clearly stands out that
scientific evidence was not taken into account when
making political decisions that
would affect the entire population in such a devastating way. To the non-use of
scientific evidence the lack of transparency is added, by not making public the
disaggregated data of the affected population from which to understand how the
pandemic was evolving (García-Basteiro et al.,
2020a; Trias-Llimós et al., 2020). This situation has
led to infections and deaths in Spain being much higher than in other
countries, very much in contrast to a high quality
health system and efforts on the part of health personnel. The director of the
prestigious medical journal The Lancet, Richard Horton, speaks in terms
of the complicity of these errors about governments themselves (2020).
Regarding
this action denounced on several occasions in articles published in The Lancet
(The Lancet Public Health, 2020; García-Basteiro et al.,
2020a; García-Basteiro et al., 2020b; Trias-Llimós et al., 2020), higher education
institutions in Catalonia have mostly opted to follow the slogans of the
government instead of using scientific evidence, contrary to what scientists,
both national and international, demanded. Moreover, except in one of the
universities interviewed in the research presented, these universities opted
for submitting to power by assuming the protocol (in the case of Catalonia, the
so-called PROCICAT). This shows that these higher education institutions did
not ensure what was the best to do in order to be
promoters of actions to improve and provide tools for improving the
situation of the pandemic. In addition to this submission to power, a populist
anti-establishment discourse has been found (Mols et al., 2020), which stated that the move to online
teaching was a way of prioritizing and benefitting private universities (in the
case of Catalonia, the UOC or the UNED), and, therefore, sinking public
university. This was stated by several of the interviewed professors when they
received the guidelines in their universities to continue with the maximum
in-person attendance as possible.
The
present article is a glimpse and reflection on how higher education
institutions are not being, in the presented case, the pioneers in applying
scientific evidence to be promoters of a change that helps to stop the
pandemic. In addition, it highlights the only case that has chosen to do so by
overcoming both the submission to the established power and the criticism based
on an anti-establishment discourse.
The
review of the scientific literature, together with the results of the fieldwork
carried out, suggests the need to continue reflecting on the role that higher
education institutions can play in situations like the one we are currently
living with the COVID-19 pandemic, when governments do not always respond as
they should. Higher education insitutions could be
the ones promoting and being an example of the elaboration of public policy
dialogue, where decisions are made based on scientific evidence and in dialogue
with citizens.
Conflict of Interest
On
behalf of all authors, the corresponding author states that there is no
conflict interest.
Notes
1 In the following
link you can find more details (information in Catalan): https://interior.gencat.cat/ca/detalls/Article/PROCICAT-pla-dactuacio-per-Pandemies
2 Open University of Catalonia, a distance-learning
university
3 National University of Distance Education
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