HOW TO CERTIFY AND PROMOTE YOUR UNIVERSITY WITH SAFE UNIVERSITY DESIGNATION

European Tourism Academy is proposing a set of simple and clear-cut measures to protect the academic community and universities in the Covid 19 pandemic. The European Tourism Academy is advocating in the SAFE COVID-19 UNIVERSITY DESIGNATION chart for universities to get on board and get certified with a string of effective measures destined to ensure the academic process is epidemic-free and safe.

These proposals for the health and safety of academic communities are including:

• ventilation of teaching and learning spaces

• timetabling to mitigate against overcrowding

• regular and thorough cleaning throughout campus

• hand sanitisers in place at entrances, exits and throughout buildings

The wearing of face coverings will be expected and recommended on entry to, and when moving around, buildings.

These are just a few of the proposals of the European Tourism Academy comprised in the COVID-19 SAFE UNIVERSITY CERTIFICATION GUIDELINES based on WHO Covid-19 prevention measures and European Council on Tourism and Trade experience in promoting worldwide measures of hygiene and Covid-19 prevention.

The certification is the only way to promote universities, to ensure students and personal working on the educational sector alike of the capacity of the university administration to protect them and the most powerful tool to drive the educational system back to normality.

Recent studies reflected that 80% of students and professors will choose a CERTIFIED EDUCATIONAL FACILITY –SAFE UNIVERSITY FOR COVID-19 PREVENTION above all other educational facilities.

European Tourism Academy recommends for universities a line of efficient COVID-19 prevention measures destined to offer a safe and hygienic academic environment (necessary to achieve COVID-19 SAFE UNIVERSITY DESIGNATION-CERTIFIED EDUCATION FACILITY):

• Universities are advised to introduce a hybrid teaching and learning model.
• To promote social distancing markers
• To build a socially distant study space
• To offer a teaching schedule that reduces the volume of students moving around the campus at any one-time
• To create one-way walking routes
• To install Increased hygiene and cleaning regimes
• To offer hand sanitizer stations
• Contactless payments — to buy food and drink, use the sports centre, pay for car parking and printing
• Arrangements for University Halls of Residence with measures to enable social distancing, automatic gates and doors, and ‘quarantine’ support for overseas students
• All buildings assessed and marked as COVID-secure to show that they adhere to national public health guidance
• All buildings where practical are operating with enhanced ventilation measures including window airing and ventilation systems switched to 100% outdoor air.
• The safety of staff and students is, as always, our first priority. As such, we all have a personal responsibility to help keep ourselves and our wider community safe. We are therefore maintaining some safety measures on campus, including social distancing and the use of face-coverings in indoor locations, over the summer period. All of these measures will be subject to review and revision as appropriate, in the context of any changes nationally or locally.

The European Tourism Academy has released the COVID-19 SAFE UNIVERSITY CERTIFICATION GUIDELINES in order to help the global education system in preparation for the certification process and in offering a safe and hygienic educational environment oriented towards academic excellence and not hampered down by COVID-19 worries.

European Council on Tourism and Trade has supported the re-birth of tourism across Europe with Covid-19 certification and restored tourism to its former glory. Now using this positive experience European Tourism Academy is launching COVID-19 SAFE UNIVERSITY DESIGNATION-CERTIFIED EDUCATION FACILITY with the hope to bring back safety in the academic communities across the globe.