A student taking a face-to-face exam.

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  • Started since mid-December, the partial runs until the end of January depending on the universities.

  • When they take place face-to-face, it is not always in compliance with barrier gestures.

  • And online exams aren't a panacea either.

    Because universities are faced with cheating and computer bugs.

First semester exams necessarily different this year, due to the health crisis.

Started since mid-December, they run until the end of January depending on the universities.

"The terms of passage are very variable, some universities having maintained face-to-face, while others have set up a remote formula to avoid the mixing of students", observes Virginie Dupont, vice-president of the Conference of Presidents of university and president of the University of South Brittany.

For her university, she decided to reserve the face-to-face partials for students having to validate a license, a professional license or a master's degree at the end of the year.

At Sorbonne University, the exams also follow different rules depending on the course: “In Sciences, we have a lot of exams on the table, but in Letters, they take place online.

Even if all the students would have preferred to spend their exams on site, because they have a terrible desire to come back and they think that fairness is respected more in person, ”indicates Marie-Cécile Daniel, vice-president of training.

Health instructions not always respected

A complex preparation work for the teaching teams and which caused some organizational problems, as observed by Paul Mayaux, president of the Fage: “Some exams are canceled the same day.

Others are rescheduled in an emergency, while students have left the city where they are studying to return to their family home ”.

And when they take place in person, it is not always in the respect of barrier gestures, observes Mélanie Luce, president of the UNEF.

“We saw pretty scary images of entering and exiting exam rooms, there were too many students crowded together.

Instead of calling them a few minutes apart to make staggered entries, and above all to increase the number of examination rooms to reduce the gauge in each of them.

But for that, more examiners would have had to be recruited, and the ministry did not provide the funds to do so.

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Besides Camille, who will soon spend hers in her university, is not reassured.

“I find it unconscious to let students take assessments in the same room.

Especially since the new variant of the virus apparently affects even more young people, ”she responded to our call for witnesses.

Substitution sessions not organized everywhere

The university canteens are always closed, the lunch break between two partials is also a risky moment, notes Paul Mayaux: "As it is cold, students tend to crowd into cars for lunch".

A difficulty of which Virginie Dupont is aware: "We want to reopen the halls of universities at lunchtime so that students can sit and have lunch in a warm place, even if the police will have to be used to ensure that they respect the rules. of distancing ”.

Another concern: students sick with Covid-19 or contact cases are not all housed in the same boat: “Some universities have organized bis sessions to allow them to pass their partial.

But others put them zero in case of absence.

Suddenly, they will have to go to catch-up, ”observes Paul Mayaux.

“This system is dangerous, because to avoid getting hit with zero, some will spend their partial with the Covid,” adds Mélanie Luce.

"We saw that there was cheating"

Online exams aren't a panacea either.

“Especially those who offer an assessment with multiple choice questions (multiple choice questions), because cheating is easier.

We were confronted with this last year ”, recognizes Virginie Dupont.

What Gwendoline, a nursing student, was also able to observe: “The tests taken online were and are in the form of QCM or QRU (short answer questions), but also QCROC (short open answer questions).

During the results, we clearly saw that there was cheating with high marks compared to those obtained in person ”.

Same story with Laurie, a second year law student: “I have a Snapchat group with my class and each time at the end of the test, I could see that they had sent each other all the answers.

It's unfair for those who actually work and learn their lessons ”.

To avoid this pitfall, universities favor reflective work, dissertations, press reviews, text comments, application exercises… “We assess skills more than knowledge.

And students are reminded that if they get help from a loved one, they will not be up to standard next year.

Whereas if the exams show great difficulties, we can offer them support for the rest of the year, ”explains Marie-Cécile Daniel.

Technical problems that complicate the exams

And like the online courses, the partials in distance are not exempt from hiccups, as Shaïna testifies: “I was not able to open some partials, which made me waste a lot of time to do my work.

It has happened several times that students are unable to submit their part-time work on the exam platform because of bugs ”.

Finally, some fear that they will not be rated at their fair value, such as Tristan: “The results are not at all representative of our level and our work.

I had passable grades despite having hardly worked since September ”.

Because in many universities, teachers show leniency in their grading to take into account the difficulties of online education ...

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