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Singaporean students enrolled in foreign universities are taking a wait-and-see approach when deciding whether to return to their host countries, despite government guarantees that they will be covered with medical subsidies and insurance if they contract Covid-19. .
While Education Minister Lawrence Wong said last month that authorities will now allow students to travel abroad as academic terms will soon resume, many say his decision depends on the situation in their host countries.
Those studying abroad at institutions where distance learning is not offered as an option will be eligible for government subsidies and insurance coverage if they test positive for the coronavirus and seek treatment in Singapore.
But some, like Carmen Chin, a freshman at the University of Melbourne in Australia, said the announcement would not affect their decision to return.
“Our student visa requires us to obtain health insurance. So if you were in Australia and you had Covid-19, you would choose to receive treatment there,” said the 20-year-old, who is in a bachelor of arts program.
“It would be easier to contain the virus if I was tested, quarantined, and treated there. I wouldn’t want to ‘import’ the virus home.”
Ms. Chin said that her first semester, which began last month and ends in December, is conducted entirely online, although things could change in the next semester.
The decision to travel to Melbourne or not is also out of your hands, as the city, the capital of the state of Victoria that has been the state most affected by the pandemic, is still under strict lockdown restrictions, including border closures. .
Said Ms Chin: “If Melbourne allows us in, I would like to go. It is definitely a challenge not being able to physically attend school. The first semester of the first year is especially important so that we can assimilate into the school and its culture, and it’s hard to do it from home in Singapore. “
Some who chose to return abroad also said that the government’s announcement had little influence on their decision.
Teresa Yong, 22, a third-year student at the University of Manchester who is reading social anthropology, returned to Manchester on August 30. She had booked her flight at the end of July.
She said she is concerned about the capture of Covid-19 in the UK, but decided to go back there because “I thought of the situation as something that we cannot keep running from.”
“If I were to test positive for Covid-19 in the middle of the period, I think it would make more sense to seek treatment (in the UK). It would be putting more people at risk traveling back to Singapore,” he added. .
There is an option for students at his college to do full remote learning during the semester, but online learning is very different from face-to-face classes, he said.
“It is more difficult to engage with study materials and subjects, especially in subject areas like mine, where interactions and discussions in lectures and tutorials add a lot of value to our learning.”
He also cited difficulties in learning online as one of the reasons why he decided to return to the UK. “Due to the time difference, I would have to attend classes at odd hours if I were in Singapore.”
Nidesh Muralidharan, who is studying law at the University of Bristol in the UK, will fly back to Bristol on Sunday. You will have to serve a 14-day isolation period before your final year of study begins on October 5.
“Self-isolation will be at our expense. If we do not have our own accommodation, we will be housed in a government facility on our own,” said the 24-year-old, who will stay in a private apartment and there serving his quarantine.
He will get his meals, he said, and he will order food online or have a friend help him pick it up.
“This is my last year. The university has told us to come back if we can … All of our lectures will be online but our tutorials will be face-to-face, so I prefer to be there for my tutorials, at least, for one crucial year,” Mr. Nidesh said.
But he is somewhat reassured by the government’s announcement, as “it is definitely important to know that there is always the option to go home in case things go wrong.”
There are around 19,000 Singaporean students enrolled in universities in the United States, Great Britain and Australia.
On the home front, a large number of foreign students also seem to be waiting for the Covid-19 situation to pass.
The Ministry of Education (MOE) said that some 10,000 international students have left Singapore since March, and since then the MOE and schools have facilitated the return to Singapore for about half of them.
Most of the more than 5,000 students who have not yet returned are studying in institutes of higher education, such as universities.
A spokesperson for the MOE said that students who have not returned to Singapore are receiving support from their teachers and lecturers through home learning and educational materials via electronic platforms.
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