The farewell to the limited number for access to university faculties of Medicine, with selection at the end of the first semester. The consent arrived on April 24th from Select Committee of the Education Commission of Palazzo Madama on the new methods of access to courses, with the selection of enrolled students who are no longer incoming but following the results of the exams carried out after a first semester open to alldivides insiders into those in favor or against.
“Those entrance tests will finally disappear where to enter the Faculty of Medicine a boy is asked how high the magpie flies: now I hope that this is the first step towards the same system being adopted for admissions to specialization schools”, he said Matteo Bassettidirector of the clinic of Infectious Diseases at the San Martino hospital in Genoa.
Even trade associations seem to disagree. For example, the reform of access to medicine on the French model finds the consensus of Anief union: “It should have been done a long time ago,” said President Marcello Pacifico, because “for years in Italy we have had very few specialized doctors, the tests are now useless and anachronistic. With this measure we will finally be able to combat the emigration of our young people to Europe to undertake medical studies”.
The trade unionist would look favorably on saying goodbye to the limited number also for access to the teaching profession: “it would be good” to introduce the model “as soon as possible also for teachers who ask to specialize in Support for disabled students and for candidates to obtain a teaching qualification. Because it is the exams that make a graduate, not the cross-checked quizzes”, concludes Pacifico.
Of a completely different opinion is theAnduthe National Association of University Teachers, according to which “the basic text does not provide for the abolition of the numerus clausus at all, but maintains it by moving it from before entering the medical degree course to the end of a first university semester”.
“To be able to access the second semester of the degree course in Medicine – claims Andu – it will be necessary to pass all the subjects foreseen in the first semester, in order to then be placed in a «national merit ranking».
Even more so because every year, we read in the text approved in this first step in the Senate, “the overall number of enrollments for the second semester” (i.e. the limited number) will be established “in line with the need for professionals determined by the NHS”.
Furthermore, for students of «last three years of secondary school» orientation and training courses will be organised development of vocations», attendance of which will also earn credits valid for the first university semester. Furthermore, “training and preparation courses for degree courses” will be provided.
The basic text was “practically adopted unanimously”, declared the President of the Commission, who also said: “The hateful numerus clausus that we have known for the last 25 years will no longer exist.”
Andu now replies: “the selection foreseen in the Basic Text will be even more odious”. And he explains why. “Students in the final years of secondary schools are effectively forced to commit themselves, if possible more than what has happened up to now, in training and orientation paths that will distract them from school studies and, for those who can afford it, it will lead them to spend on expensive private ‘support’ courses.”
Furthermore, the association continues, “approximately 80% of those enrolled in the first university semester lose six months of their life, committing them to the useless task of taking the required subjects by the end of the semester with the highest possible marks (wild competition) and with probable expenses to also attend private ‘support’ courses. These students will be prevented from continuing with the medical degree course not because they are undeserving, but because they are less deserving than others. The immense damage caused to the expelled students is the same that occurred for decades in France.”
Then, again for Andu, “the selection is made localistic which will be done, in fact, by individual universities through examinations of the required subjects, with the risk of arbitrariness and favoritism; localism which, among other things, will give rise to appeals”.
And again: “the race for expensive (even very expensive) private national and foreign universities will continue, a phenomenon which has had the side effect of Bosniagate”.
But it’s not over for Andu: “the massive entry all at once will clog up the universities which will not have time to adapt promptly” and they will continue “to claim to be able to predict 10-11 years in advance (the time needed to train a doctor ) how many doctors will be needed by the NHS: what will then be the needs of citizens? What will be the medicine of then? How many doctors will go into private practice or abroad?”.
Finally, the academic association denounces, “we continue to believe that it is possible to ‘intercept’ with tests or other selective methods the “propensity”, the “aptitude”, the “vocation”, the “real motivation” of an 18-year-old 19 year old to become a good doctor 11 years later, when everyone knows that this verification is only possible through the entire training course (degree and specialization)”.
The Andu believes that “in order not to resort to the draw the selection process becomes disproportionately worse”: instead, the draw would be “a simple, immediate, inexpensive and appeal-proof system, unlike what happened with the various types of tests used to bar entry”. While the limited number, the association claims “is unconstitutional, represents useless violence against young people and has produced, as in France, a very serious shortage of doctors”.
This idea is also shared by senator Andrea Crisanti, of the Democratic Partywho told a newspaper: “The only transparent form of selection is a national test on the subjects studied in the first semester”.
For the senator Domenica Castellone, M5s doctor and member of the Palazzo Madama Commission that evaluated the text, it would have been possible to “integrate the methods of access to the second semester with the provision of an evaluation test”.
It’s a shame that the law the Senate is working on is going the other way.
