STAPS: professional integration guaranteed!

With 700 first-year students enrolled for the 2017-2018 academic year, STAPS remains one of the most popular post-bac courses for Montpellier students. In addition to the excellence of the training provided, the very high rate of professional integration of its Master's students obviously has something to do with it.

Photo © Miss Buffet Froid

Montpellier'sUFR STAPS (sciences et techniques des activités physiques et sportives) was founded in 1976. At the time, the (single-sex) courses offered by what was known as the "UER d'EPS" were aimed exclusively at training sports teachers. In 1980, the UFR acquired its own infrastructure on the Veyrassi campus to the north of the city. Despite a steady increase in enrolment, the professional integration of its students has never wavered.

Professional integration

In the 1980s, UFR STAPS began diversifying its range of training courses. A variety of sports-related courses such as "Adapted physical activity and health", "Sports training", "Sports management", "Education and motor skills" and "Ergonomics" gradually emerged.

Today, no fewer than 11 Master's programs are offered at the UFR STAPS de Montpellier. This varied range of professional training (one of the most diversified in France) explains the exceptional professional integration rate of its Master's students: 93%. "We offer training in virtually every profession related to sport, which, in addition to being an essential element of well-being and quality of life, is and will remain an attractive asset in which people will want to invest. It's such a vast sector that there will always be work to be found in it," predicts Didier Delignières.

A salutary reform?

"At national level, the number of students enrolling in STAPS has doubled since 2007", continues the dean of Montpellier'sUFR STAPS. A situation that the President of the Conference of STAPS Directors and Deans explains precisely by the often truncated image that new baccalaureate holders have of the course: "Many enroll in STAPS thinking it's the 'cool' course. But STAPS isn't just about sports. While a third of the time is actually devoted to physical activity, most of the time is spent acquiring theoretical knowledge while sitting in front of a desk!

Because they don't have the right profile for higher education, more than 60% of them fail their first year at theUFR STAPS Montpellier. For Didier Delignières, this is an unacceptable situation, due in large part to the lottery procedure, which leaves it up to chance to decide which students have a place on the lecture theaters' benches. " With the new university assignment procedures, default or unjustified orientations will soon disappear," says the dean of UFR STAPS Montpellier.

Presented to the Council of Ministers on November 22, 2017, the "Orientation and Success of Students" bill currently being adopted by Parliament aims, among other things, to abolish the lottery in order to reduce the failure rate in the first year of university studies. While its detractors denounce the disguised arrival of a "file-based selection" applicable from the start of the next academic year, Didier Delignières is awaiting it with bated breath and predicts, why not as early as 2019, a success rate approaching 70% at the UFR STAPS Montpellier.

Key figures

• 2,200 students
• 70 teachers and researchers
• 113 guest speakers
• 93% professional integration after a Master's degree

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