TRAINING DEFICIENCIES IN SECONDARY SCHOOL: CAUSES OF DEMOTIVATION AND PREMATURE ABANDONMENT OF UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

It is a palpable situation the enormous step that exists between the formation in secondary school and the university formation. Even when in high school both students and teachers make a great effort, when the student arrives the university level he finds that he lacks basic training. The problem is that, in those circumstances, the student does not know who to go to.

In the School of Industrial Engineers of the Spanish University of Distance Education we are mindful of these difficulties and, to try to alleviate them, we have organized a basic training zero course for all students who want to access the Engineering studies. This course is designed for students who doubt whether their knowledge and training are good enough to be able to go in a first course of the university degree with a minimum guarantee of success.

This zero course covers the subjects of mathematics, chemistry, physics and technical drawing. Among the four subjects, the technical drawing is probably the most problematic because in the secondary school, for some years now, this subject, fundamental for an engineering, is being left aside. For this reason, the students of the secondary school reach the university level with very serious deficiencies. These deficiencies cause students to make an extra effort to catch up; But that extra effort sometimes causes discouragement in the students and causes the premature abandonment of the classrooms.

With this zero course it has been proposed to solve the problem of the deficient formation of the students of secondary and, in addition, to alleviate the effect of the premature abandonment of the students. This article describes the work planning to organize this zero course, in particular the technical drawing, as well as the first conclusions reached after some editions of this zero course.