Student exchange during Corona times. Is there a silver lining?
Author: Zuzana Dostálová
The COVID-19 pandemic made things difficult for over a hundred exchange students at the Faculty of Informatics and Management (FIM UHK). Some students stayed put in their current destination, while others thought it wise to go home immediately.
Out of 45 exchange students, two-thirds of them returned to their home country and most of them continued in their mobility studies on-line. Fifteen of them did not come back to the Czech Republic. In fact, three exchange students remained based outside of Europe. Ludmila Rejšková and Pavlína Formanová are amongst those exchange students who decided not to return home. Both of them study Information Management and they decided to stay in Kuopio, Finland, and to continue their studies on-line and to further discover the beauty and wonders of the local landscape. “The situation in all of Finland has, generally, not escalated as badly as in other European countries. That’s not to say that there aren’t certain measures in place. Schools are closed and all learning is done online. All catering outlets are closed. All big events, like ice hockey matches and sports events, have been cancelled. But everything else is allowed here,” explains Ludmila Rejšková and adds: “Our Erasmus programme is absolutely carefree. Before the epidemic hit Europe in full force, we managed to visit Lapland for a week and then travelled to Tallinn, Estonia, just in the nick of time. We spent our free time ice-skating on frozen giant lakes. To add to that, we rented a car twice since April and made several day trips with friends to the breath-taking Finnish countryside.”
Contrary thereto, 60 international students took up their studies at FIM UHK at the beginning of the summer semester. Half of them went home when the pandemic struck. And only a third of those who returned home continued in their studies online. The others dropped out. Most of them were male students from Asia and five female students from Portugal. The other half that stayed in the Czech Republic and continued their studies at FIM UHK are mostly Europeans, but also students from Columbia, Mexico and Thailand. “I went home for two weeks at the end of January. When I was supposed to go back to the Czech Republic, my family and I already knew that the COVID-19 virus was spreading through Italy, but at the time it was not as obvious and there was no quarantine, so I decided to risk the trip. I did it for the same reasons that led me to extend my Erasmus+ programme by one more semester. Apart from finding a girlfriend as soon as I arrived here, I like FIM’s teaching approach, I enjoy living at the student residence and I like Hradec Králové and the Czech Republic in general,” explains Diego Contaldi, a computer science student from Salerno, Italy.
On 26 February 2020, Vice-Rector Zdeněk Beran cancelled all study and work trips to risk areas and, by analogy, all arrivals from such countries were either postponed or cancelled all together. Envisaged summer schools were also cancelled. So FIM UHK could unfortunately not welcome over a hundred international students in July and August last year.
But the new Rector’s Decree passed on 16 June 2020 has gotten our hopes up. Provided the Faculty takes into consideration the up-to-date information and recommendations published by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic, study and work trips abroad and international internships for students and academic staff will get the green light.
