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A test could predict a university fail

by editor
Introducing an entrance exam for higher education courses could predict a fail in the first year. 

This is according to a study by three Belgian universities, who looked at “testing and filtering students”. Le Soir reported on the study. The majority of students who failed the test also failed their first year. 

The Higher education minister Jean-Claude Marcourt (PS) asked the ULiège, the UNamur and the ULB to look into how to filter students at the start of their first year. To do this, the universities based themselves on the “entrance passport exam”, which tested the specific skills needed for studying. The researchers then compared the results of these exams to those at the end of the first year.  

The comparison appears to show that if the passport exam was used as a selection tool, it might be able to predict a fail. This is the case for the mathematics passport exam, for example. It was given to 208 students starting an economic science course at the beginning of the 2015 school year. Almost half (48%) of the students that took it failed that exam: 85% of those that failed also failed their first university year. 

Nearly 50% of those that passed the entrance test failed their first year anyway. 

Jason Bennett

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