in March, an assembly that demanded face-to-face activity / file
The alarm began to run among the commissions that gather, in total, between 7 and 8 thousand entrants and spread to the student center. Once again, virtual classes returned to the center of complaints in the UNLP Faculty of Medicine, now with students who report having been left out of an exam due to alleged failures in the attendance accreditation system on a web platform through the which is taken in the first year. With that, a few weeks after entering, they are left out of a key subject to advance in the race.
Since 2016, Medicine no longer has the qualifying entrance exam. You go directly to the first-year courses, which went from around 300 or 400 students, in that exam period, to around 7,000 in this one. In Histology, for example, they get together with students from last year. You have to pass that annual to be able to continue towards the second, with Physiology. According to proposals received by this newspaper, for many the progress was cut off as soon as they began: “We started with Histology in March and we had three classes that gave them recorded. They left us all outside as we found out. We want to be judged by our knowledge,” a student told this newspaper.
The apparent problem, as indicated and then agreed by the student center, would be of a technical or administrative nature, in principle. “Having taken a look at the list of students of the chair, with their respective commissions, it is that I am notified that I am not qualified to take the midterm exam due to resulting in three absentees”, it is indicated in a note that runs between the students for a standard presentation before the deanery and it is added that “said situation is incorrect in view of the fact that I was present in all the classes given, and this can be attested to with the Webex computer system used, in which I registered correctly with name, surname and file”.
This newspaper consulted the dean about the proposal. As of press time, there had been no response.
From the Student Center they agreed with the position of the entrants who went out to protest. The vice president, María Agustina Perrotta, criticized the operation of the subject in question: “During the pandemic it worked poorly, seeking to leave students out for administrative reasons. Last year in almost all the meetings of the board of directors we made presentations about problems with that chair. For example, to register you have to fill out an eternal form and if you don’t do it right they leave you out, “she said and added that” now, the present is taken by Webex, which is a platform like Zoom, with more tools. Ask for the file number, name and surname. If it’s not put in the specific order, it leaves you out.” As she concluded, “these are not absences, but irregularities of the chair system.”
Among the students, there is talk of hundreds or thousands of people affected. In the Center they handle the data with caution, but it is not ruled out that there are several hundred different commissions. Yesterday, new efforts were reported before the dean to review the table.
Meanwhile, some students went out to call for demonstrations at the Faculty headquarters and before the University rector’s office.