When I visit colleges and speak to principals, I often joke that anyone can run a college and that maybe I should give it a go. I don’t mean it, of course - it is a very German way of joking; a commonly ill-fated attempt at irony: running a college, I am fully aware, is a massively complicated and rather difficult job, particularly when done well. And that was pre-pandemic.

It is probably fair to say that this week’s “U-turn” on face coverings in English schools and colleges was less than surprising. After last weekend’s change in World Health Organisation guidance on face coverings for children, and the decision by the Scottish government to make them mandatory in secondary school common areas from Monday, pressure was building on the Department for Education to act.

News: Face masks should be worn in high-risk colleges

Coronavirus: Who needs to wear face coverings in FE - and when?

Opinion: Why we’re providing face visors for all college staff

And act it did - with a late-night announcement, saying that face coverings should be worn in communal areas, such as corridors. Well, in local lockdown areas, that is. So far, so good - college leaders, staff and students will know if they are in any such area, and can therefore act accordingly.

Coronavirus: Difficult decisions for colleges over face masks

“Nationally”, the government said, it was not recommended as necessary. Instead, it would be up to school and college leaders to decide if, in their special circumstances, face coverings should be worn. That’s fine then.

I don’t envy anyone having to make that sort of call. Personally, I have been wearing (home-sewn) face coverings wherever I have gone for months, even before it was mandatory in shops and other places in Scotland. But I know that even the very personal decision whether or not to wear a face covering, go into an office, meet people is a judgement call - and a difficult one at that. So never mind trying to work out if, when and how to bring together all or a proportion of your thousands of students and hundreds of staff.

And when you have worked that out - how do you know whether your “circumstances” make masks necessary? For starters, college students don’t travel as far to learn as many do for university - but they certainly travel further than the radius of a secondary school catchment area. What if some of your students live in a higher risk or local lockdown area?

Is it better to be on the safe side and make face coverings mandatory everywhere? After all, a new study in the British Medical Journal shows the positive impact of wearing a mask on the risks of transmission in different settings. 

But it isn’t quite that easy, either. Some colleges have offered visors to all staff - others have had branded face coverings made and are even offering them to students for free. But that comes at a cost - yet another expense for institutions that have already had to pay for new signage, plastic shielding, you name it. Students and staff will also have hugely varying views on masks - so any such policy may not be as straightforward as one might imagine.

And then there is the “classroom” issue. The policy says face coverings, if deemed necessary at all, should be worn in communal areas where social distancing is difficult to maintain. “It will not be necessary to wear face coverings in the classroom, where protective measures already mean the risks are lower, and where they can inhibit learning.”

Not all college classrooms look like classrooms. There are workshops, and beauty salons, and gyms. And some college students face huge barriers, and so their learning might be quite easily “inhibited” in situations where it might not be for most schoolchildren.

Remote learning will help with some of this - areas will be less crowded, and students will be able to stay off campus for at least some of their studies. But again, colleges are more complex than that. How much of a vocational, practical class can you teach remotely long-term? Or at a distance? At the same time, I have already heard college lecturers voice concerns that some students may disengage from their studies if they don’t have the support of face-to-face classes. It is a balancing act that literally has people’s health at stake - with Covid-19 and mental ill-health only some of the risks.

For this next term to work at all, students and staff in colleges need to feel safe. And I really don’t envy leaders and staff who have to make sure that they do.