It was easy to spot apprenticeships and skills minister Gillian Keegan’s honest excitement as she talked about her first “real life” college visit in months this week. Colleges are open for business, welcoming students (and ministers), just as they have been asked to in the government’s guidance.

They do so after months of preparation and having spent significant sums of money to try and make campuses as safe for everyone who enters them as they possibly could be.

But considering the large number of students enrolled at colleges - and most of them should, if the government gets its way, have some face-to-face delivery this term - and the fast rise of the famous Covid-19 “R” rate over the past few days, I fear news of cases among staff and students will increasingly become commonplace.

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The government, it seems, is once again putting its focus elsewhere. One mention was all colleges got in the prime minister’s briefing earlier this week. Schools “and colleges” would only close again as a very last resort, Boris Johnson told the British public.

Coronavirus: Keeping colleges safe

That was regardless of the fact that the statistics shared by chief medical officer Chris Whitty were far from irrelevant to FE, with his data on infections showing that the highest incidence per 100,000 population was now found among 20- to 29-year-olds - followed by other young age groups. The prime minister was quick to reassure his audience that universities would open for the new term, and that specific advice for the sector was coming. He also stressed, yet again, that the impact of not being in school was more significant than the risk to their health from going to school.

The risk from universities reopening is, of course, significant. University students travel significant distances for their courses, they houseshare or stay in halls of residence, socialise with their peers - it is easy to see how the risk of them passing a virus has to be relatively high.

But there was not a word on the fact that colleges across the UK are already open, running courses for thousands of students, a significant proportion of them face-to-face. And while a large proportion of college students will be in the groups now seeing a significant increase in cases, colleges also bring together a staff cohort that is slightly older and therefore at higher risk from the virus, students with care responsibilities for vulnerable relatives, older learners and students with health challenges.

A paper published by the government last week, and endorsed by the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, says further education “creates connectivity between multiple organisations and could amplify local transmission”. It goes on to say that “a significant risk associated with FE is the potential to facilitate wider transmission between households and workplace settings, by providing greater connectivity within a community”.

“FE settings are diverse and highly connected with their local communities,” the paper adds. “A significant proportion of FE students are apprentices in workplaces creating connectivity between the FE providers and multiple other organisations. An outbreak associated with FE poses a risk for industry and the FE provider both in terms of health effects and loss of personnel who may be isolating.”

All of this is incredibly obvious to anyone working in and around FE - but it is still worth saying. That is the environment college students and staff are currently working on - despite the fact I truly believe colleges have tried their hardest to make their sites as safe as they can be.

What it comes down to, however, is this - also from the abovementioned paper: “All FE providers should expect to have cases of Covid-19 and it is highly likely that some FE providers, local health agencies and the National Institute for Health Protection (NIHP) will have to manage the consequences of a more significant outbreak either directly associated with their setting or within their local community or region.”

The importance of Covid-19 testing in FE

Gillian Keegan told me this week that it is “certainly the intention” that colleges remain open. In that case, it is absolutely essential that the key recommendation of last week’s paper on managing the transmission of Covid-19 in FE settings becomes a reality. It calls for a national strategy for coronavirus testing in colleges to be developed that can then be implemented locally - and that, to me, is a no-brainer.

We have already seen how a lack of access to quick and easy testing can cause disarray, with the countless tales of teachers struggling to get tested nearby. Students and staff at every college have to be given access to tests, and then there needs to be a common approach to supporting students and staff who test positive.

The SAGE-endorsed paper says FE settings are “good locations to pilot both mass testing/population case detection (PCD) and contact tracing approaches; studies that assess the effectiveness of these surveillance approaches should be carried out”.

It has to happen. Mass testing most likely won’t stop cases from occurring. Sadly, that is just the reality. But it would help limit the reach of those cases - and lift some of that hideous anxiety that so many have felt since the first day of the new term.