It has been confirmed that on average, students will be on campus for just 10 days in semester one, Dublin City University (DCU) student union vice president for academic affairs Lucien Waugh-Daly told Irish Country Living.

Waugh-Daly said: “DCU’s online learning portal ‘Loop’ has been given a facelift for the upcoming academic year and will be much more user friendly. College lecturers have also been given the necessary training and resources to adapt to this new way of teaching.”

Lectures will now be conducted online for the most part with tutorial classes proceeding in small socially distanced groups. Students at the university have raised concerns around the reduction in face-to-face learning with yearly tuition fees remaining in line with previous years.

“The student union will try its best to give all students, and especially first years, a reason to be on campus in order to maintain the necessary social interaction associated with their college years,” Waugh-Daly continued.

“The campus is open all week and we will be encouraging first years to come in and mingle at some of our events during the year. We will ensure that students are spread out across the campus with mask wearing coming into play also.”

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Dublin City University Students’ Union has outlined their plan to help first year students interact during a time of distanced learning.