Did the students, who mostly took distance courses in the first semester, fail their exams, as many feared?
If there have been "
disasters
" in places, the Minister of Higher Education Frédérique Vidal is pleased that the results are better than what one could fear.
“In
the first semester exams, there were only 3% more absences compared to last year
”.
“
You held on and you did not drop out massively,
” she told students on Tuesday, during a trip to Poitiers.
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If they did come to take their exams - an imperative for those who want to keep a scholarship - did they succeed?
Many teachers feared a disaster, after more than two months of lessons in "
distance
" and an avalanche of testimonies of students recounting their difficulties in following them behind a screen.
In some universities, however, the crash happened well.
"
The results are quite bad, even catastrophic
", reports Nelly Ferreira, dean of the law faculty of Cergy Paris university.
“
We have more scores below average than in previous years and the usual group, which generally has between 7 and 10/20, this year collected much lower scores;
those have not acquired the basics at all
”.
She now fears that these poor results will have a "
discouraging effect
" in the second half of the year.
"
We are approaching this second semester with uncertainty,
" confirms Rachid El Guerjouma, president of the University of Le Mans.
According to the first results of the exams, the success rates will not be “
disastrous
” but “
lower than in previous years
”.
"
We feel that the knowledge is there but that the questions of method are not well learned,
" he continues.
The most penalized would, according to him, be the first years, which could not really finish high school last year or start university this year.
But in many places, the results seem "
stable
".
As at the college of science and technology of the University of Bordeaux, where the success rates in the first year are, to one point, the same as last year.
"
We really wondered what was going to happen for newcomers to university,
" says Ghislaine Godinaud, director of the license department.
“
In the end, we certainly lost a few, but not more than in previous years
”.
At the University of Strasbourg too, the first feedback reveals “
rather stable
” results.
New this year, there was dropout at all levels, not just in first year, as is usually the case.
Proof, according to Michel Deneken, the president of the university, that "
distance education, distance from university, stress
" have affected a very large number of students: "
the mind has often taken a hit, when this are not the capacities of work or assimilation
”.