"Students could be in-person at 50% from mid-May"

• While many students are preparing to take exams or competitions, the Minister of Higher Education specifies their terms to 20 minutes.

• She also returns to the sling of BTS students, who demand to be evaluated in continuous assessment.

• If 60% of students come to university one day a week, as they are allowed, they may soon be able to be more face-to-face.

The students do not yet see the end of the tunnel, but prospects are given to them.

If they are already allowed to come back to university one day a week, they could be much more from mid-May, as announced by the Minister of Higher Education, Frédérique Vidal, at

20 Minutes

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It also specifies the modalities of exams and competitions, while expressing itself on student success.

When can the exams be held in person again?

Currently, all national exams and entrance exams to schools are maintained. But terminal examinations at universities for graduation have been suspended. A priori, they will be able to resume from May 3, according to the knowledge control methods that have been validated by the establishments: face-to-face, remotely or via the submission of a report. During the first semester session, 30 to 40% of the exams took place face to face. They will be a little more numerous in the second half of the year. Because last year, we heard a lot - wrongly - that when the tests were at a distance, the diploma was of less value.

BTS students have been demanding for several weeks the cancellation of their exams in favor of continuous assessment, believing that the health situation does not allow them to prepare them, nor to take them in good conditions. Why are you refusing them?

Last year, as all establishments were closed during exams, the choice was made to base the evaluation entirely on continuous assessment. Which was complex, because the BTS students of high schools without contract, the free candidates and some of the apprentices did not have continuous assessment notes. This year, the fairest solution for everyone is to maintain common tests that reassure students about the value of the diploma. In addition, any student who has been prevented for health reasons or who has failed the first session will be entitled to attend a replacement session, which will take place at the beginning of July.

Several testimonies report positive students for Covid-19 or contact cases who came to compose. Why are candidates not required to produce a negative test when entering the examination room?

First of all because it would be a matter of revealing information on their state of health, which is in the private domain.

And in the vast majority of cases, students are very responsible.

What is important is that we can give them a second chance if they are sick.

And the organization of the exams guarantees that there will be no contamination, even if someone is ill without knowing it, through the distance between the tables, the wearing of the mask, the ventilation of the rooms, the presence of the patient. hydroalcoholic gel.

Moreover, the thousands of examinations that took place between the end of last year and today have not caused any cluster.

Which is proof that the health protocols for the exams are working.

But photos showed students gathered in front of examination rooms ...

We have put in place very clear instructions for examination centers.

Candidates must be called at different times to allow for staggered arrivals and departures.

They should not gather in front of the examination centers either, so as not to create a crowd.

Some sick or contact students will not be able to take a competition and complain that they are not entitled to a second chance.

What do you answer them?

We will not count the year in which they could not appear for medical reasons, in order to allow them to retake the competition.

But it is not possible to create another session for the writings because this would lead to a break of equality between the candidates.

Some might say that they would have done better with the subject of the first session and vice versa.

But for oral examinations, it may be considered to shift them.

The oral exams of the Sesame competition were canceled following technical incidents and replaced by the study of the academic record, resulting in a loss of chances for some candidates.

What do you think ?

It is the responsibility of the schools which organize them.

I have no doubt that they are attentive to the demands of the students.

The goal of all the teaching teams is to ensure that the particularity of this year is taken into account.

Since the end of January, students can come to the university one day a week.

Do they do it?

On average, 60% come back.

The others remain completely at a distance because they have returned an apartment and now live too far from their place of training.

Or because they have found a balance by taking the courses at a distance.

Will they soon be entitled to more face-to-face lessons?

A protocol on which we worked provides that students could be in face-to-face at 50%, from mid-May or end-May, depending on the fallout of the epidemic peak.

But since it is a little late in the year, many establishments will enter the evaluation phase.

This could therefore concern certain training courses which extend until the end of June and July.

The establishments will also be equipped with thousands of self-tests by next week for staff and students in order to strengthen the health security of establishments.

Our goal is a face-to-face return at the start of the school year.

The Conference of University Presidents affirmed that they did not observe a massive dropout of students at the end of the first semester.

Do you have figures to prove it?

Yes, the exam attendance rate was 90%, roughly the same low water level as in previous years.

And the results of the first semester show that the success is not less good, except on a few masters.

But the number of candidates in reorientation increased on Parcoursup (they are 182,000 this year).

Isn't this a sign of the difficulties they encountered this year?

Reorientation requests increased by 5%.

This is explained by a statistical effect, because the success rate for the bac was exceptional (95.7%).

Some young people who did not expect to have their baccalaureate did not completely succeed in their orientation.

In early April, members of the presidential majority asked Emmanuel Macron to open, from the same month of April, vaccination to 

students.

Request that was rejected.

Will they be the last on the list?

The vaccine strategy has been to prioritize people who end up in intensive care, and who are rarely young.

Vaccinating 18-25s would absolutely not lower the pressure on the hospital system.

But we can estimate that in the summer, vaccination will be open to them.

Student insecurity is increasing.

Is there any provision for a revaluation of the amounts of grants based on social criteria?

We must rethink the system for allocating social aid to students, because today, many young people are at the limit of being able to benefit from aid.

And in a time of crisis, it becomes complicated for them.

We are therefore going to review the criteria for awarding scholarships, but nothing has yet been finalized.

What is certain is that there will be no increase in registration fees.

How many students have benefited from psychiatric checks?

On average, 3,000 students are supported each week.

And this device can still scale up.

We will keep it until the end of the academic year and even beyond, if the students still need it at the start of the school year.

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