Since last year the Maturity has returned to ‘normality’. Between 2020 and 2022, in fact, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the rules of the state exam had been revised. And it is precisely in recent years that High school exam scores have increased compared to the past. A trend which, although mitigated, was also found in 2023. All the data.
With the pandemic, high school diploma grades increase
Maturity 2024 is coming to an end. After the first and second tests (and the third for some fields of study), the graduates are busy with the last step of the exam, the oral exam. From 2023 thestate exam it returned to following the usual methodology after the pandemic parenthesis, in which the final year students only had to face the oral exam in 2020 and 2021, and in 2022 a second exam developed by the examination board (therefore it did not have a national character).
Compared to pre-pandemic years, something has changed: the high school leaving exam scores, in fact, have tended to increase throughout Italy. In 2023, valuations began to decline again, but still remained higher than in the past.
As reported by ‘Pagella Politica’, which reworked the data of Ministry of Educationlast year 10% of students in the Maturity obtained a grade of 100 or 100 cum laude. In the years before the pandemic, this percentage was around 7%. In 2020, the year of the spread of Covid-19, 12% of the students obtained the maximum grade, in 2021 17% and in 2022 13%.
Furthermore, in the last 3 years the percentage of students who obtained a grade between 91 and 99 has also increased: it was 10% in 2019, rose to 16% in 2020 and 2021, in 2022 it was 15% and last year it fell to 12% (+2% compared to 2019).
At the same time, between 2020 and 2023 the share of students who obtained a grade between 60 and 70 also decreased. In 2019 the percentage was 38% (more than 1 in 3), falling to 26% in 2020 and to 23% in 2021. The share rose slightly in 2022 (24%), and then grew more substantially in 2023 to 31%, without however reaching pre-pandemic levels (-7% compared to 2019).
If it is true that high school diploma scores have increased throughout Italy in recent years, it is also true that there are significant differences between types of school and between regions.
How high school graduation grades change based on the school
Looking at the average grades obtained by students at the Maturity between 2019 and 2023, it is the high school students who have had the best performances. On average, 17% of high school graduates (24% at classical high school and 20% at scientific high school) got 100 or 100 cum laude, compared to 8% of technical institutes and 6% of professional. The same thing applies to the grade range between 90 and 99, achieved by 16% of high school students (20% classical and 17% scientific), by 11% of those who graduated from technical institutes and by 10% of those who have matured as professionals.
On the contrary, the lowest grade bands, between 60 and 70, are the most popular among professionals (average 38%) and technicians (average 36%). The percentage drops significantly if we look at high schools, where it is equal to 20% (18% for scientific and 12% for classical).
How high school leaving exam grades change between regions
In addition to those found among the types of schools, significant differences are observed in the territorial distribution of high school diploma scores. For example, between 2019 and 2023 graduates with 100 and 100 cum laude are much more common in the southern regions, Calabria first and foremost, where on average over 17% of students obtained the maximum result in the state exam. A percentage more than double that of Lombardy and almost 3 times higher than that of Valle d’Aosta.
In the record 100 and 100 cum laude at the Maturità, Calabria is followed by Sicily, Puglia And Umbria, where the percentage remains above 15%. Among the regions with the lowest shares of students who have obtained maximum marks in the state exam in the last 5 years we find the aforementioned Valle d’Aosta (6.2%) and Lombardy (8%).
Below is the distribution of Maturity grades region by region. The data reported, in descending order, represent the average grades obtained by students in state exams between 2019 and 2023.
- Calabria 17.4%
- Puglia 16.3%;
- Umbria 15.2%
- Sicily 15%
- Marches 13.2%
- Basilicata 13.1%
- Abruzzo and Molise 12.9%
- Campania 12.8%
- Lazio 11.7%
- Sardinia 11.2%
- Liguria 10.5%
- Tuscany 10.4%
- Emilia Romagna 10%
- Veneto 9.7%
- Friuli Venezia Giulia 9.3%
- Piedmont 9.2%
- Trentino Alto Adige 9%
- Lombardy 8%
- Valle d’Aosta 6.2%
As underlined by ‘Pagella Politica’, “the comparison of grades between regions must be taken with caution given that the evaluations of the tests are not standardized and depend in part on the discretion of the professors”. The results at the Maturity, in fact, “contrast” with those of the Invalsi tests, the standardized written tests that measure some specific skills in Italian, mathematics and English. The Invalsi of fifth grade students show higher results on average in the regions of North compared to those of South.
