Fear of intelligence at university6 reading minutes

At the beginning of January 2021, students at the Sorbonne protested against the holding of «in-person» partial exams in most faculties, as announced a few days ago. If the French press is to be believed, the revolt is growing louder and louder, all the more so as the start of the 2020 academic year had already taken place in a climate of high tension, linked to the health situation and the difficulty of finding places in lecture theaters. While these material reasons have legitimately led some students to express their discontent, there are quite different, systemic reasons that should have prompted them to rise up much earlier, in an attempt to save an institution at the end of its reign, not to say at the end of the race. My experience at seven different universities bears witness to this.

My personal journey has taken me to no less than seven universities in Switzerland, Japan, the Czech Republic, Germany and France.