Matura
The Matura is the obligatory exam after finishing the gjimnaz (secondary school) to have one's education formally recognized and to become eligible to enroll in universities.
The Matura is a centralized affair, conducted by the QSHA (Center for Educational Services) which is in charge of selecting tasks, appointing national examiners, grading the sheets;[1] other agencies ensure the safety and integrity of the exams.
In the Gymnasium (AHS), which, as opposed to vocational schools, focuses on general education, the Matura consists of three to four written exams (referred to as Klausurarbeiten, four to five hours each) to be taken on consecutive mornings (usually in May) and two to three oral exams to be taken on the same half-day about a month later (usually in June); The higher vocational education schools (BHS) such as HBLAs, HTLs, and HTBLAs follow a similar format.
Compulsory subjects for the written finals are always German and Mathematics, as well as a foreign language (usually English, French, Spanish, Italian, Latin or sometimes Ancient Greek).
The Austrian Matura used to be a decentralized affair, however since 2014 tests in Mathematics, German and foreign languages are now centralized and held at the same day throughout Austria.
The second subject must be chosen between: In 2008, according to the statistics on the web site of the Bulgarian Ministry of Education,[3] 76,013 students have registered for the matura exams.
[4][5] The examinations are conducted by the National Center for External Evaluation of Education (Nacionalni centar za vanjsko vrednovanje obrazovanja – NCVVO).
Many university faculties and other higher-education institutions already have their applications closed by the end of the summer term due to having reached their first-year students enrollment quota for the upcoming academic year.
[9] The B level exam literature list consists of the following: Camus' The Stranger, Cesarić's Lirika, Gundulić's Dubravka, Ibsen's A Doll's House, Krleža's The Glembays, Matoš's Pjesme, Novak's Posljednji Stipančići, and Sophocles' Antigone.
The A level works are: Camus' Stranger, Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, Držić's Dundo Maroje, Flaubert's Madame Bovary, Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther, Kafka's The Metamorphosis, Krleža's The Glembays and The Return of Filip Latinovicz, Marinković's Ruke, Nehajev's Bijeg, Poe's The Black Cat, Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, Sophocles' Antigone, Šimić's Preobraženja, and Šoljan's Kratki izlet.
The optional subjects are Biology, Chemistry, Computer science, Ethics, Geography, History, Logics, Music, Philosophy, Physics, Politics, Psychology, Religious studies, Sociology, and Visual arts.
At the end, students gather all the examination material and seal it in the opaque silver bag they had received, which will then be sent back to NCVVO for grading.
Their final points are then calculated based on the following:[14] The official term for matura in the Czech Republic is maturita or maturitní zkouška.
Gymnázium (similar to grammar school) students usually choose from: The state part of the exam is supervised by CERMAT (formerly Centrum pro reformu maturitní zkoušky, "Centre for Maturita Reform; now Centrum pro zjišťování výsledků vzdělávání, "Centre for Determination of Education Results"), a state managed company.
In 2012 the state part of the maturita exam was split into two difficulty levels – students could choose between basic and advanced tests.
The Czech Republic also has a separate examination system called Národní srovnávací zkoušky ("National Comparative Test"), owned and managed by the private company Scio, s.r.o.
In Italy, the maturità is informally regarded as a rite of passage from adolescence to adulthood,[19] after which secondary school graduates get ready for higher education and/or a job.
The first one is Italian and is identical nationwide: students are required to write an essay, an article on a given topic, but they can also choose to analyse and comment on a text (usually a poem).
The second test changes according to the type of school the student attended, so it can be on a wide variety of different subjects, such as pedagogy and psychology, mathematics, foreign language, Latin, and Ancient Greek.
The interview section is to assess that the student has really reached a personal and intellectual maturity concerning the various subjects of his or her last school year; the examining commission is supposed to ask about every subject, but has got to make sure that the candidate is also able to discuss about a variety of themes explaining and justifying his or her opinion; also, in recent years has become customary for each student to prepare a short essay (tesina) on a free topic, intended to showcase the ability to cover different sides of the topic using extensively the notions and methods learnt in school.
The Tests are provided by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, and are in Albanian, Serbian, Turkish and Bosniak, who make the ethnical groups of Kosovo.
Under the old system (popularly called stara matura) candidates' performance was assessed solely by teachers from their own schools.
The rankings which determine which students will be accepted to a certain high school are formed based on Matura exam points and GPA of final grades of each year in certain or all subjects.
[29] In Slovenia, the splošna matura (a general, university-oriented leaving exam) is an obligatory examination completed at the end of gimnazija (upper secondary school) in order to have one's education formally recognised and to become eligible to enroll in colleges and universities.
Since there are no entrance examinations for the vast majority of Slovenian university programmes (notable exceptions include art, music and architecture), the score on this exam serves as the main criterion for admission (grades achieved during secondary school also play a small part).
The gymnasium, leading to the Matura graduation, is the highest tier, offering broad and thorough academic foundations to prepare its students for direct entry to university.
Approximately 20% of youth attain the Matura every year, although this figure varies among the different cantons, which are in charge of (upper) secondary education.
An additional exam called Latinum Helveticum, also organised by the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation,[35] allows the student to study a field at a university that requires Latin knowledges.
The program requires successful completion of general education subjects as well as one year of additional training in one or two professional fields and writing a matura paper.
The following fields may be chosen from; health, social work, science, communication and information, music/dance/theater, art and design and education.
