• NUS stepped up requirements for staff members and students to get themselves tested for Covid-19 before they return to campus
• Students told TODAY this was a minor inconvenience
• They said they appreciated being able to return to campus for some lessons because it is more conducive for studies

SINGAPORE — The National University of Singapore (NUS) on Monday (Oct 4) stepped up the frequency of Covid-19 self-tests for its staff members and students, before they can return to campus for physical lessons.

The students did not seem to mind it, with a number of them telling TODAY that it was a small price to pay for them to be able to return to a conducive learning environment and to interact with their peers.

NUS is now the only university in Singapore that requires both staff members and students to undergo regular testing for Covid-19.

The university’s Fast and Easy Test (FET) regime, which uses antigen rapid test kits, kicked in on Aug 10 this year.

Up until Monday, fully vaccinated staff members and students who did not stay on campus had to do a self-swab before their first visit there, and after that, they have to do another self-test before every 20th visit.

For those who had yet to be fully vaccinated, they had to do a self-swab before their first visit, and once more before every fifth visit to the campus.

In its latest circular to both staff members and students last Thursday, the university said that it would be updating the frequency “for the protection of the campus community”.

The circular stated that the FET results will now only be valid for seven consecutive days, including the day of testing, for those who are fully vaccinated, while the validity for the unvaccinated is four consecutive days.

‘MINOR INCONVENIENCE’

Despite the increase in frequency, students said that they do not mind the minor inconvenience.

Mr Ashwin Unnithan, a third-year business student, said that with the rising number of daily Covid-19 cases, he felt that it was a necessity.

Within the past week, the daily reported Covid-19 cases have been trending above 2,000 and it hit a high of 3,577 cases on Wednesday.

The 23-year-old who, like other students interviewed by TODAY, attends physical classes at least once a week on top of virtual lessons. “It is a bit irritating when you have to do the swab, but honestly given the circumstances and cases, it’s more of a social responsibility.” 

Fellow business student Calvin Loke, who is also in his third year, said that the tests gives him a “peace of mind”, knowing that those around him are free of the coronavirus.

On the rising case numbers, the 23-year-old said that he was not overly concerned as long as the community does its part to mask up, practise good hygiene and observe safe distancing.

“For students our age, we are young and healthy. Most of us will be asymptomatic so I don’t see a need for concern,” Mr Loke said. “The concerns should be for the elderly and the healthcare system.”

For one second-year political science student, who declined to give her name, the increase in testing frequency is not something that has overly bothered her.

Rather, she said she was just grateful that she could return to campus for some of her tutorials because learning in the classroom was more conducive and “many people can’t study well at home”.

Aside from that, she said that being able to see her peers and professors in person made it easier to facilitate discussions, and she could interact socially with them.

“That's a major part of university life,” the 20-year-old said.

NUS said in response to TODAY’s queries that more than half of the university’s classes are conducted online.

This is in view of the “national effort to achieve normalcy as we move towards Covid-19 resilience”, it said.

All face-to-face classes are conducted in line with the national safety guidelines, such as keeping it at a maximum of 50 people, including teaching staff members, for every venue.

Mr Jack Chua, a first-year engineering student, said that he appreciated this move because it was just not practical to conduct some lessons virtually.

The 21-year-old cited the testing of the physical properties of a material as one example. Previously, his faculty tried conducting the lesson online by testing the materials for the students and sending them the data.

“This got rid of the data collection learning process for the students and made the lesson completely useless,” he said.

For business students such as Mr Unnithan, being able to attend lessons physically was important because some of his modules are presentation-based, he said.

“The students would have to do presentations for the class, share their answers and findings.

“In that sense, the delivery would be very different if it was via (the video conferencing platform) Zoom, where you are just presenting to a screen and not the class itself.”

He added that another downside of online classes is that sometimes, students do not even turn on their cameras and the professor “won’t know if what he is delivering is getting across to the students”.

In a circular disseminated to business students last Monday, Professor Andrew Rose, the school’s dean, said that having a hybrid teaching format was in their “best interest” both in terms of public health safety and academic learning.

While he acknowledged the need for the community to safeguard themselves against Covid-19, he said that face-to-face learning cannot be disregarded as well because “it is far more effective than learning online”.