Why 30% of nursing students drop out before the end

• Nursing training institutes (Ifsi) are the most requested sector on Parcoursup but struggle to retain students.

• According to Emmanuel Macron, “30% of students stop during training and around 10-15% fail at the end”.

• Dropouts due to a poor knowledge of the requirements of the training, the difficult experiences experienced in internships and the difficulties of students to make ends meet.

They give in their blouses even before they graduate.

This is the bitter observation that Emmanuel Macron made on January 6, during his wishes to the nursing staff: “30% of the students [nursing] stop during training and around 10-15% fail at the end.

A phenomenon corroborated by a survey* by the Fnesi (National Federation of Nursing Students) published last March, which indicated that 59.2% of nursing students had already thought of stopping their training.

Figures all the more worrying as this profession lacks arms.

The profession, however, arouses strong interest among high school students in the final year: "Training in Ifsi (Nursing training institute) is the most requested on Parcoursup: 100,000 candidates applied there in 2022 for 28,000 places", explains Jérôme Teillard, head of the Parcoursup project at the Ministry of Higher Education.

Orientation errors?

It is often in the first months after their return to school that nursing students leave the ramp.

Asked by

, the Ministry of Health evokes a dropout rate of 13% "two months after the start of the school year".

These early stops are often synonymous with orientation errors.

« The end of the entrance examination in 2019

changed the situation.

Because the pass required to prepare it and therefore to be really determined to embrace the profession

“, notes Magali Clausener, author of

*.

Are all the baccalaureate holders who now apply to Ifsi on Parcoursup really motivated, do they really know the content of these studies?

In fact, final year students are not all aware of the training requirements before applying.

“The theoretical level of the training is high.

And some have difficulty in biology or pharmacology.

They are not used to doing analytical work, sometimes have difficulty in mathematical reasoning or writing.

Hence the support courses that we are sometimes obliged to offer them, ”explains Michèle Appelshaeuser, president of Cefiec (Committee for agreement on nursing and executive training).

Financial problems that hinder studies

Another factor explaining the flight of white coats during the course: "the problems of precariousness of students", pointed out by the Minister of Health, François Braun, in November.

The latter notably mentioned the “scholarships paid late” by the regions.

Especially since the cost of these studies can be high.

“Not all students are registered in the public.

Registration in a private Ifsi can cost up to 1,400 euros per year.

Added to this are housing, food, books, equipment…”, enumerates Magali Clausener.

The financial support of the family, when it exists, is often not sufficient.

“The young people who go to Ifsi generally come from underprivileged backgrounds.

They often work in parallel with their studies, which is very difficult, because the training program is very dense”, observes Violaine Massot, president of Esiop, an association which helps nursing students.

According to the Fnesi survey, 58.1% of nursing students say they work alongside their studies and among them, 21.4% have to work weekends and 7.5% work 2 to 3 times a week.

"We have around 35 hours of lessons per week, to which is added personal work (rereading of lessons, partials to prepare, dissertation, etc.) The fact of exercising a job on the side is very tiring and difficult to maintain in the long term", explains Kevin Brige, Fnesi spokesperson.

Sometimes students stop just to breathe, because since 2007, it is possible to interrupt one's course for three years and then resume it.

But for many, the break that was supposed to be temporary, becomes permanent.

Internships or obstacle courses?

The renunciation of students is also linked to “mistreatment during internships”, declared François Braun.

“For their first internship, in the first year, they will find themselves in nursing homes or geriatrics, it is almost systematic”, observes the minister.

Not always easy experiences: "They make up for the lack of caregivers and they are asked to wash patients, which is not obvious when you've never done that in your life", notes Violaine Massot .

“Besides, a lot of dropouts occur after the first course,” adds Kevin Brige.

Discovering the reality of the job, they suffer in addition to the crisis of the public hospital: “They are sometimes manhandled and pressurized.

They are asked to integrate all the instructions the first time and they do not necessarily have a tutor to refer to.

Because the nurses on duty are overwhelmed and do not have time to teach their profession to the students, ”notes Magali Clausener.

And where they thought they would confirm their vocation, they sometimes leave with a shattered dream: “Some professionals do not encourage them to continue in the profession, given the difficulties that the hospital is going through”, relates Michèle Appelshaeuser.

A future facelift in anticipation

Faced with this human waste, the government understood that it had to react.

To limit referral errors, work has been carried out on the Parcoursup platform: "This year, we added an Ifsi tab to Parcoursup, which contains videos of professionals talking about their job, as well as a self-positioning test, allowing a high school student to check whether he meets the expectations of the training", explains Jérôme Teillard.

Emmanuel Macron also called for "reviewing the organization and operation" of nursing studies by this summer.

François Braun also confirmed that the course would be renovated.

By first evoking his desire to tackle internships.

"During the first internship, we have to make their eyes shine, they have to be in the sheave, in the emergency room, in very specialized services", he declared, specifying that the very high pressure internships should rather be offered in end of the course, when the students are already seasoned.

Violaine Massot, too, believes that the internships should be better put together: “Real objectives must be set, tutors must be trained for their coaching mission and they must be given time for that.

For her part, Michèle Appelshaeuser considers that we should think about not putting an internship in the first year to give students time to acclimatize to the training.

But it is also the content of the training that should be reviewed, according to the Fnesi: “Some lessons are useless.

We should review the training framework, ”insists Kevin Brige.

This would also make it possible to reduce the number of hours of the course and to refocus it on the essentials.

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* The survey was distributed from March 2, 2022 to April 16, 2022, to 15,652 students via all Fnesi distribution channels (site, direct contact with students, etc.).

** Become a nurse

*, Magali Clausener, Student editions, 13.90 euros.

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