To all students in the Department of Economics.
Currently the plan of Maynooth University is to move to a hybrid model of education with live-streaming, asynchronous material such as pre-prepared instructional videos and face-to-face lecturing.
Following the government guidelines the seating will be reduced in each lecture hall/classroom to maintain the physical distancing rules - either 1m or 2m depending on the pandemic conditions at the time. And in no room will there be more than 50 people at one time. This significantly reduces the room capacity because for instance JH1 seats 400 people under regular conditions. The frequency with which each individual student will be able to have a face-to-face instruction will reflect the physical distancing limitations. This will have varying effects on each module depending on room allocations and student numbers the module will attract. In small classes, the impact on the frequency of face-to-face lecturing is expected to be less drastic. All of this is of course subject to change as new government guidelines are issued.
As the Department of Economics, while we cannot yet announce the exact number of face-to-face instructions for each module, we commit that each student in every module will have access to the video of any session that takes place face-to-face in the lecture hall/classroom to give access to all.
We know that this is a stressful and anxious time for students, who are rightly concerned about what the future holds for them. Rest assured that the Department of Economics are working very hard to ensure that disruption to your university experience is minimised and that nobody is left behind as a result of the rtestrictions imposed on us by the public health guidelines.