The government is backtracking and wants to reestablish a single pathway for the first year of health studies. It thus renounces the dual system put in place in 2020, deemed too complex, opaque and a source of excessive stress for students and their families. Although the 2019 reform made it possible to diversify profiles and limit unnecessary repetition, the government now recognizes the need for a move towards a more harmonized, readable and equitable model across the entire national territory.
“The (current) system (see our box) has brought real progress – fewer unnecessary repetitions, greater diversity of profiles – but it has also generated a complexity that has become unbearable for students and their families”justifies the Minister of Higher Education, Research and Space, Philippe Baptiste. From Paris-Cité University, with Stéphanie Rist, Minister of Health, Families, Autonomy and People with Disabilities, they announced on April 17 changes to the organization of the first year of health studies.
The government thus wishes to put an end to the PASS and the LAS, two acronyms which today lead many final year students and parents to tear their hair out in front of a system which offers two routes of access to the studies of medicine, midwifery, odontology, pharmacy or physiotherapy. The specific health access course (PASS) is a path close to the first year of traditional medicine, and the license with health option (LAS) a second path, allowing you to study another major subject – scientific or more distant such as law or economics – than health, while retaining the possibility of integrating, in the event of good results, such a sector, and in particular medicine. These two sectors will therefore merge.
New device
Announced for the start of the 2027 school year, this new single path will be based on “tthree balanced blocks » of subjects taught: two of these blocks will be dedicated to health, the first focused on “fundamental scientific knowledge” common to the five sectors, according to a “lightened program, refocused on the essentials”. The second health block will be dedicated to “psychosocial skills, communication, ethics, human and social sciences”. Finally, a disciplinary block depending on the choice of an additional license is put in place, based on the LAS model.
At the end of this first year, the student will therefore be able to try to access one of the five health sectors, provided they have validated a minimum level in the two blocks ” health » et « disciplinary« . In the event of failure (if he does not succeed in integrating medicine or one of the other sectors), he will be able to continue in the second year of the license, and try his luck again at the end of this second year. The new system thus maintains one of the main contributions of the LAS, the openness to other matters than those strictly related to health. It also gives students the possibility of accessing another license if they fail to enter a health sector. “Students and families need more fairness and support”underlined the Minister of Health, Stéphanie Rist, agreeing that“technical points (…) remain to be clarified”.
Loi santé 2019 : petit rappel des faitsLa réforme de 2019, officiellement entrée en vigueur à la rentrée 2020, a marqué un tournant dans les études de santé en France en supprimant la PACES (Première Année Commune aux Études de Santé) et son système de "numerus clausus". Ce dernier fixait un nombre très limité de places au niveau national, ce qui entraînait un taux d'échec massif et de nombreux redoublements sans équivalence pour les étudiants non admis.
Pour remédier à cela, la réforme a instauré deux nouvelles voies d'accès : le PASS (Parcours Accès Santé Spécifique) et les LAS (Licences Accès Santé). L'idée centrale était de diversifier les profils des futurs soignants en permettant à des étudiants venant de filières variées (droit, économie, lettres, etc.) d'intégrer médecine, maïeutique, odontologie, pharmacie ou kinésithérapie. Elle visait également à offrir une "seconde chance" en permettant aux étudiants de poursuivre leur licence en cas d'échec au concours, évitant ainsi le sentiment de "tout ou rien" caractéristique de l'ancien système. Enfin, la gestion des capacités d'accueil a été transférée aux universités, en lien avec les agences régionales de santé, pour mieux s'adapter aux besoins locaux sous un nouveau mécanisme appelé numerus apertus (nombre ouvert).
To find out more:
• The first year reform: towards simplifying access to health studies.
