SI-PASS in a Belgian university: a pilot showcase

In recent years, the University of Liège (Belgium), like many other institutions, has been coping with an ever-increasing number of first-year students, not compensated by an equivalent increase of supervisory capacities. This situation has resulted in both a rather impersonal first-year experience for freshmen and a worrisome level of drop-out and failure, especially in difficult entry courses. To tackle these two issues, the Faculty of bio-engineering (Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech) has decided to run the pilot of a SI-PASS peer tutoring scheme. This article reports on the practical aspects of this dry-run and provides participants’ data about its perceived effects.