The controversy that aroused the low academic performance of students from the UNLP School of Medicine in midterm exams in recent weeks yesterday had an impact measure at the institutional level: the board of directors approved a request for information on the performance of students in all first year subjects.
The measure seeks to delve into a disturbing picture that suggests the postponement of around 80% of students who took an exam for the Chair of Anatomy C, one of the subjects with the greatest gravitation in the first step of medical training.
After the impact generated by this result, a few hours later another similar case was published, in the Infectious Diseases department, which is being studied later. At the same time, it was warned in those hours that in the Obstetrics career there are also results that can waver between 80 and 90% of delays. In those cases, there was no official information.
While the debate is taking place regarding the incidence of the failures of Secondary education or the massiveness that the Faculty acquired by removing the eliminatory entrance exam, the representatives of the students, graduates, professors and non-teachers debated yesterday a proposal of the minority student (Counselor of the group Winds of Down) oriented to obtain concrete data on the magnitude of the problem, at least in the first year (total in the courses, in conditions of performance and the results). A comparison with other faculties in the same discipline was also requested.
“These numbers serve as a kick to open a debate that cannot be postponed and has to do with the way in which, as an educational community, we think about pedagogical, academic policies that seek to favor entry, permanence and graduation, in a faculty where every year we see that enrollment is growing and where we also see every year that there are very high percentages of disapproved”, said the councilor Joaquín García in the session the day before.
The proposal, it was indicated from that bench, was unanimously accompanied by the rest of the body.
The entrance exam worked for more than two decades, until 2015. It was annulled after the reform of the Higher Education Law, which now prohibits this type of instance. At that time, around 300 students per year entered the faculty and the total enrollment was in the order of 3,000.
Since then, the numbers have risen sharply, reaching around 8,000 entrants this year. The faculty has a total enrollment of the order of 33 thousand students. That represents a quarter of the total enrollment gathered by the UNLP in its 17 faculties.
The bad results were known ten days ago in a convulsed context in Medicine. Since the beginning of the year, the persistence of classes in the virtual format in a high percentage of careers has generated discomfort among students.
According to the complaints, in which members of the teaching staff also converge, this prevents the development of practical classes where contact with patients in hospitals is generated, a factor considered key for professional training in health careers.
massive
They were the postponements in exams of the last weeks in subjects such as Anatomy and Histology. According to students and teachers, between 80 and 90 percent did not demonstrate the minimum knowledge to advance.