The reform of the medical competition continues to divide students and teachers.
The government does not want to start "reform of the reform".
However, he recognizes that there are still “points to clarify and improve” in the new organization of health studies, the Minister of Higher Education and Research said on Thursday.
"The impasse of students repeating a year without success at PACES is over", welcomed Sylvie Retailleau during a speech at the opening of the congress of the general assembly of medical training and research.
As a reminder, two new Pass (specific health access course) and LAS (licenses with health access) were created at the start of the 2020 school year to replace the much criticized Paces, first year common to health studies.
The objective: to diversify the profiles of the students, to evaluate them on their human as well as academic aptitudes and to allow them to have outlets after a failure in the competition.
But certain modalities of the reform still seemed difficult to read to the students, such as the introduction, for some of them, of a general culture oral not relating to any notion of the program.
“Points to clarify and improve”
If "the establishments have taken more ownership of the reform, points remain to be clarified and improved", acknowledged the minister.
In particular, places “not filled in pharmacy and midwifery” at the start of the school year, she regretted.
According to the National Association of Pharmacy Students of France (Anepf), some 1,100 places, or 30%, are still vacant on the benches of the 24 French pharmacy universities, a figure up 550% compared to the previous school year. .
The Minister also recalled “the issue of social diversification” and profiles in health studies.
"We still have work to do to have a readable PASS-LAS reform" also allowing "to validate the achievements, while maintaining a high level and a requirement in the selection to guarantee the quality of future practitioners", he added. she adds.
Read also“This ordeal destroyed me”: the bitterness of medical students who failed after the general culture oral
In addition to this reform of the first year, the government has also planned, in the Social Security budget for 2023, to add a "year of consolidation" to the course of future general practitioners, which would be carried out outside the hospital and "in priority in under-resourced areas”.
The Minister of Health François Braun indicated on Thursday that this year would be "professionalizing", accompanied by an educational project, and that its development in under-dense areas would be "encouraged, an incentive and certainly not a coercion" which " would not work”.