90% of students completed their Nursing Master's degree without failing

The University of Évora (UÉ) guarantees that around 90% of students on the Master's in Nursing complete their studies within the expected time, contesting data released by the Directorate-General for Statistics according to which no one completed the course without failing.

At the end of June, the Infocursos portal released a set of information on more than six thousand courses available in higher education , presenting several indicators, including the “Completion Rate”, in which the Master's degree in Nursing at the University of Évora appeared as one of the courses in which no student had managed to finish their studies in the expected time .

The Directorate-General for Education and Science Statistics (DGEEC) used as its main source the data reported by higher education institutions in the “Register of Enrolled and Graduated Students in Higher Education” (RAIDES) surveys, between 2014 and 2023.

In the DGEEC table, the University of Évora's Master's in Nursing appears as one of the programs in which "0" students completed their studies within the expected timeframe. However, in a statement to Lusa, the institution's vice-rector, Noémi Marujo, stated that "the presentation of the DGEEC data, as mentioned, does not accurately reflect the reality of the University of Évora."

The Master's in Nursing is a program offered jointly by several institutions , "with the University of Évora and the Polytechnic Institute of Setúbal being just two of the entities involved, along with the Polytechnic Institutes of Portalegre, Beja, Castelo Branco, and the University of Algarve," she explains. Noémi Marujo therefore considers it "technically incorrect and manifestly unfair" to single out one of the institutions .

The master's program operates on a rotating basis among the six partner higher education institutions, and in the 2023/2024 academic year, the University of Évora was not the host institution, adds Noémi Marujo. The University of Évora assumed this responsibility in the 2016/2017 and 2020/2021 academic years , years in which "approximately 90% of students completed the course within the allotted time," she adds.

The DGEEC explains that, to calculate this indicator, the academic years in question vary according to the theoretical duration of the course, making it possible to understand how many students completed the course in the expected time, how many needed an extra year (N+1) or an extra three years to obtain the diploma (N+3).

"The reference academic years for graduates are set at 2019/2020 (N), 2020/2021 (N+1), and 2022/2023 (N+3). The reference academic years for those enrolled in the first year for the first time differ depending on the theoretical duration of the course. For example, in the case of three-year first-cycle undergraduate degrees, the reference academic year for those enrolled in the first year for the first time is 2017/2018," reads the technical note accompanying the DGEEC database.