When eight out of ten are cut…

At an iconic university in Athens, the failure rate in exams per subject moves steadily toward 80%. “Passing this course is only half a degree!” The students who complain about the “torturer” professor — literally as his peers described him in “K” — aren’t just teaching a difficult subject, say students. But “detailer” in benchmarking. Who is to blame? Strict professor, unprepared students, teaching and exam methods? The National Higher Education Authority (ETHAE) highlights the problem of high failure rates in some courses, through certification reports of departments of Greek HEIs. In this context, he criticizes institutions for not having the will to study and deal with it. Of course, there are institutional tools, but they are more like “complaint boxes” in public services. When students don’t believe a report, they dust it off in a corner. And rightly so. No complaints are accepted.

A total of 1,400 students announced that they will take part in an important course exam for the first year of Athens Law School in a few days, and 1,083 for one in the fourth (final) year. Queues also form in tougher courses of civil, criminal and common law combinations, where the failure rate can approach 45%. At the Polytechnic School of the University of Patras, known as the “legendary difficulty”, the engineering course has failure rates close to 75%-80%. At NTUA, approximately 600 students out of a total of 1,300 enrolled apply for engineering courses, which are considered more difficult. Mathematics is also difficult for economics students as the failure rate approaches 70%. In one of the country’s universities, a student has been found who took the course 11 times until he passed it! “You will see courses with high failure rates in their exams. We all remember strict professors from our student years especially in big schools like Science, Polytechnics, Economic Studies, Law, Linguistics etc. But apparently the courses cannot be named, because the professors act within the framework of academic freedom,” noted Nikos Papaioannou, Dean of AUTH, to “K”.

“A significant number of certification reports for Greek HEIs’ schools show that the graduation rate exceeds the recommended n+2, which means the minimum time spent in school plus an additional two years as a margin for graduation. Exam halls are filled with three times more students than those enrolled in the year of teaching, and 10% Or because only 20% of examinees pass, they are led as “judging goats,” said a fellow student. Q” Professor Georgios-Ioannis Nichas, Member of ETHAAE and Emeritus Professor of the Agricultural University of Athens.

Speaking to “K”, the new dean of Piraeus University, Michalis Sfagianakis, said that in February and June, courses with high failure rates will be recorded so that the causes can be analyzed and action taken. “All universities have courses like this. It would be wrong to pretend we don’t see it. And the teacher is also responsible. There are academics who set high exam standards because they believe students should know more than they do. They treat students as complete scientists. However, that alone is the cause of great failure. No,” said Mr. Sfagianakis observes.

“There are educators who set high test standards because they believe students need to know how much.”

Not enough explanation

“It is common to place the ‘blame’ for high failure rates on the witty, ‘sharp’ teacher. This explanation is obviously inadequate when the failure rate in particular subjects, e.g. mathematical analysis, is large over time and regardless of who the teacher is. In my years of experience, a The professor is labeled as “difficult” when he tries to keep the course – teaching and exams – decent (according to his judgement). But even in such cases, since no one is happy with the presence of hundreds of students in their studies, they try to use what is convenient to “normalize” the grade, “their wine”. to some extent,” said NTUA’s rector Andreas Boutowicz. Besides, he added, “a high percentage of failures – e.g. 60% of the examinees, apart from those who hand in the practical white glue – in undergraduate courses at NTUA, but generally in Greek HEIs, it is mainly found in the courses of the first semesters. New students must compress from the previous term for the Hellenic entrance exams. Relaxation is facilitated by the lack of restrictions, a first in the world in Greece: there is no limit to the number of courses one can take or enroll in per semester, and there is no limit to the number of times one can choose. one course, and (until recently) no upper limit of study hours (category n+2, etc.) or system of prerequisite courses. This is how lessons accumulate. In fact, it is reported that a student at NTUA can choose from 63 courses in a semester.

in law

The nature of the subject, the high difficulty of the exam subjects or the individuality of the teacher is not the only reason for the high failure rate. “Not all students are at the same level in terms of knowledge and learning culture. This is because we accept approximately the same number of transfer students in the Law School compared to the positions originally defined by the Ministry of Education. Significantly, in 2022 we took 403 students through the Hellenic exams, and the remaining Their number increased by 397 from admissions,” Linos-Alexandros Sicilianos, dean of the Athens Law School, told “K”.

“Don’t blame strict teachers. “Look at the other side: exam professors give high marks, so the subject becomes popular and professors give more essays,” an assistant professor at the University of Crete tells “K”. study

5% rule and other evaluation filters

“In higher education institutions abroad, the failure of more than one percent of exams, for example 5%, causes headaches for the institution and the teachers, who have to justify to competent bodies what is wrong. For example, insufficiently taught subjects are included in the exams, teachers’ infection and lack of communication, etc. This information Derived from the judgments of students evaluating lecturers and indirectly used as a lever to improve the quality of education. At the same time, the teacher primarily looks for the reasons of the way and type of his teaching, the needs of the subject, the learning ability of his audience and adjusts the marks accordingly. For example, the mark is distributed based on the highest and lowest quality. ” says Georgios-Ioannis Nichas, a member of the National Commission for Higher Education, to “K”. Conversely, there seems to be no problem of courses with high failure rates in Greece, at least not recorded in the certification reports of HEI schools. It helps that students do not complain about the high failure rate or because they themselves fail the same subject many times.

“Foreign students demand explanations and full justification for their failure, through organizational processes that are recorded and investigated. Student evaluations, unlike university departments in our country, student judgments – evaluations are rarely taken into account,” says Mr. Nichas. In Greece, of course, it’s common for student unions and sections to complain to lecturers about their massive failings in their course exams – often… snoring.

“In Greece, few departments investigate failure in a course in an organized and systematic way. In most cases, the issue is justified by the academic freedom of the teacher,” emphasizes Periklis Mitkas, president of ETHAAE, who spoke to “K” about this issue. “I still remember the names of professors whose subjects were considered too difficult. Of course, there are problems with evaluation, but no one can force a university student to do something,” AUTH’s student lawyer, law professor Theophano Papasisi, told “K”.

Intermediate Examinations

Mr. Mitkas adds, “Student failure increases when grades are judged only by an end-of-semester test. Almost everyone agrees that the best way to assess a student is to take mid-term exams and write assignments during the semester. In general – especially when attendance is not compulsory – these help students who study the course a few days before the test is taken.” However, such a thing requires additional teaching staff. In extreme cases, as NTUA rector Andreas Boutowicz explains, “a particular course can be taken to see if there is any difference in failure rates. A school can hire someone else – or someone else – to teach. For example, the latter can be done in the context of teaching parallel sections with a different teacher, which is useful anyway in basic courses with large audiences. Although it may be considered pejorative for a faculty member, academics can teach a range of undergraduate curriculum courses rather than just 1-2 for their entire academic career as the number of faculty members gradually decreases. “Cycling” in teaching is an established practice in good universities around the world”.

But the law allows a student who has failed more than 3 times in a course to be re-examined by a panel of professors other than the professor. “As far as I know, the group has changed significantly from the previous teacher,” said Mr. Boutovis notes. Besides, why dare to “mess” with the professor since the student can take the course any number of times? At some point the wheel spins…

Choice of “walls” in schools

1,400 students He announced his participation in the first-year course exams at the Athens Law School.
600 students – Out of a total of 1,300 students enrolled – declare engineering courses at NTUA.
11 times A student is tested on a course until they pass at a major regional HEI.
63 courses A student has declared in NTUA for examination in one semester.
70% approaches Economics schools fail in mathematics.