In a blog for education think tank Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) Vice-Chancellor Professor Sasha Roseneil has called on the government to introduce a ‘Covid Premium’ and to make it a national priority to support and provide a better future for the so-called ‘Covid-generation’.

Following the anniversary of the first lockdown on 23 March, 2020, Professor Roseneil is calling on the government to do more to support young people - known as the Covid-generation – whose educational and mental health needs have been so negatively impacted by the pandemic and its lockdowns, the effects of which are still being acutely felt.

Severe disruptions to school children’s education, their home life, and other support networks have created major gaps in their academic and social learning. 

In her blog, Professor Roseneil outlines how, with the help of targeted government funding, higher education institutions can play a large part in providing essential social, mental health and educational support for young people, aspiring to continue their studies once they have left school. 

Chronic underfunding means that universities do not have sufficient resources to cope with the extra needs of this generation, so Professor Roseneil suggests new targeted proposals, including: 

• A Covid Premium for all Covid-generation school-leavers entering higher education.
  This would provide dedicated funding to universities to support academic skills and personal development. Tailoring the Covid Premium to each university’s student profile would target the largest funding increases at the institutions with the greatest need to intervene to enable students to ‘catch up’. It would also ensure that universities receive additional funding to make good the lost learning opportunities of lockdown, and to embed the best changes in pedagogy and educational technologies that have emerged from the pandemic.
• A Mental Health and Wellbeing Support Grant.
  Like the Covid Premium, a new mental health and wellbeing support grant should be paid to universities, and tailored so that universities with the highest number of students reporting mental health problems receive more funding. Furthermore, universities that train mental health practitioners, clinical psychologists, psychiatrists, psychotherapists, and counsellors could be incentivised to establish ‘University Clinics’, open to all young people – including non-students - in their area. These would develop evidence-based, research-informed best practice, and would provide training places for current students to develop expertise in young people’s mental health and wellbeing.

Professor Roseneil says: “The effects of the pandemic are still being felt widely across society, and especially by the ‘Covid generation’ who experienced severe disruption to their education. 

“Universities across the country are seeing this play out on their campuses and in local schools, in relation to both academic skills and in mental health issues. There is a broad trend of increased levels of psychological distress among students entering higher education – but universities are not currently funded to deal with this. 

“My proposals would go some way to addressing these serious post-pandemic societal issues, enabling universities to better support young people, by addressing gaps in academic and social learning.  “It is surely a national priority to give our young people the opportunity to reach their potential. We cannot wish away the effects of the pandemic. But we must, out of fairness, invest in enhancing the support they now need, and that can be provided by universities, for them to recover lost ground and to flourish.”

Read Professor Sasha Roseneil’s full blog: https://www.hepi.ac.uk/2024/03/25/fairness-for-the-covid-generation/