Struggling higher education students to receive guidance
Flanders’ education minister plans to introduce measures to improve the chances of poorly performing students to stay in higher education and graduate on time
Getting to students early
Crevits is following the advice of the Flemish Education Council (Vlor), which recently made several suggestions to the Flemish government to deal with the low pass rates in higher education. One of the most important proposals was a faster follow-up of exam results, linked with better assistance and re-orientation.
In its advisory report, Vlor pointed out that students who get low marks in their first academic year take longer to graduate and have an increased risk of dropping out. Intervening after the first semester would help them to reflect on their methods and choice of discipline, according to Vlor.
Vlor also advised giving both universities and university colleges permission to impose measures for the “remediation and re-orientation” of students if they don’t achieve 60% of the study points in their first year, rather than 50%, which is the threshold currently in place.
That means that the institutions could oblige students with lower scores to follow extra courses, learn how to improve their study methods or get the maximum amount of study points during the next exam period.
