Students who were due to embark on their study year abroad next term have finally received clarity from the University of Birmingham on the situation they are facing, in an email sent out on Wednesday 13th May. 

In an attached letter, Professor Robin Mason, the Pro-Vice-Chancellor (International) thanked affected students for their patience in this still ‘highly uncertain’ situation. Separating students into two sets, those who have a compulsory year abroad as part of their degree programme (set A) and those who do not (set B), he outlined the following options:

Set A students will either be able to continue with their year abroad (studying online if travel to the host university is not possible) or defer until the 2021/22 academic year. 

Set B students have a wider range of options to consider. In addition to those options available to Set A students, these students are able to invert (meaning they would complete their final year at Birmingham and embark on a year abroad in 2021/22) or cancel altogether. 

This development comes amidst mounting criticism of the way the university has dealt with the predicament facing year abroad students.

Isabella Williams, an American and Canadian studies student who was due to begin studying at Carleton University, Canada in September but has since inverted, told Redbrick that Birmingham was supposed to contact students earlier than it did, at the start of May.

Ellen Wright, a political science undergraduate who was due to commence her studies at Linköping University, Sweden, described the situation as having been ‘so stressful,’ explaining that she had had ‘no contact from either uni about how teaching will work or if year abroads will go ahead’ prior to Wednesday. She has since cancelled her year abroad plans. 

Current year abroad students have also been critical of the university’s handling of the situation. Geography student, Tess Fitzgerald, who had been studying in Mexico, described the ‘awful’ response from Birmingham University, saying:

‘I came back nearly 2 months ago now and I still haven’t had anything from the university in terms of online classes or teaching or literally anything so it’s pretty frustrating. I do know a few people who have carried on the classes from Mexico but yeah it’s quite disruptive to their schedule.’

The 2020/21 cohort have until Friday 5th June to indicate their preferred way forward.