Bernini: ahead on Medicine, ready to reach 30,000 places

Let's talk about related and other courses. For some they represent a fallback, a second-class course.

I consider it an insult not to the reform, but to the students for whom another course is not a fallback, but a choice. Just as offensive is the accusation, which I have often heard repeated, of those who said that with the open semester 'you lose a year'. Again, the numbers have turned the narrative upside down. But do we remember how it worked in previous years? Perpetually provisional rankings, continuous downgrading that went on for over 12 months. In short, long periods of uncertainty for students and universities. This year we closed the rankings, over 99% full, in February. In short, less waiting, less uncertainty, more certain times and defined paths.

Another 20%, however, some 11,000 students, are not enrolled in any course. What will happen to them? Can we think about redirecting them?

Before the reform these 11,000 young people would have been turned away at the door and disappeared in the dark. Today they are inside the system, we see them, we can reach them. And we want to reach them. That is why I will ask the universities to create orientation structures, involving students from previous years if possible. This is a necessary action, especially within universities and in the transition between the first and second semester. Whereas the entrance test deadens aspirations, the open semester enhances talents.

Looking ahead to next year. Should we expect only minimal adjustments at this point?

There is no turning back from the open semester. Examinations and no more tests, rankings closed in February, and a stop to continuous downgrading are positive elements. It is from here that we start again to make the system even more effective. We have started a listening process starting from the students. An institutional round table is active at the Ministry and is collecting and evaluating the proposals that have emerged from the concrete experience of this first year.

Will the core exams remain Physics, Chemistry and Biology? How can we avoid Physics being a bogeyman again?

The first university exams are a stumbling block for everyone. One is confronted with new methods and different times. We will integrate doctors and high school teachers into the committees of professors in charge of preparing syllabuses and questions on Physics, Chemistry and Biology. With them we will update the Syllabuses for a better connection between school and university syllabuses.

Last year they started off by asking for a sufficiency in the three core subjects, but then corrected their aim in December by considering that only one was sufficient, with a commitment to make up the debt before the second semester. This year instead?

The three passed examinations as an entry criterion will not change. Credit recovery in universities is a well-established mechanism that has worked, also with regard to the Medicine semester. It will be confirmed. Basically, one will enter the ranking list even with educational debts, but for admission to the course one will have to recover them, enhancing, from this point of view, university autonomy.

Will the calendars also change or will they start again on 1 September with an appeal at the end of November?

The aim is for the lecture period of the open semester to be longer, allowing universities to organise their teaching better. And we aim to postpone examinations so that students can have more time to study. I would like one of the exam sessions to be held in January. But this requires the involvement of the universities.

What is the status of the idea of involving private companies in the open semester model as well?

The majority parliamentary forces have submitted a bill that non-state universities must conform to national lines. It is only right that Parliament discusses the proposal and tells the government which line to follow.

At the beginning of his term of office, taking input from the technicians, he announced a 20-30% increase in posts over seven years. We started from 14,700 to over 24,000 last year including private ones. Is there room to go up further?

The increase in posts is a choice that I claim for the past and renew for the future. We have embarked on a path of sustainable and shared enlargement to meet the needs of the country and of the National Health Service to train more doctors, but also of the system of personal care and assistance as a whole. The goal of increasing the number of posts by 30,000 remains, indeed I am relaunching it with the intention of getting there as soon as possible.

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