Yesterday the last bell of the 2023 – 2024 school year rang for over 32 thousand students from primary, middle and high schools in the province of Macerata. Not so for the over 5,500 children in nursery schools, for whom the end of lessons will be on June 30th. However, the activity is not finished, given that the institutes are all busy with counting operations. And then, the final exams of the first cycle (middle school) are about to begin, which include three written tests: one in Italian, one on logical-mathematical skills, a language test divided into two sections (one referring to English and one relating to the second foreign language studied). To these must be added an oral interview which must also ascertain civic education skills. The greatest wait, however, as always, is for the state exams in high schools. In the province of Macerata there are 2,956 candidates for the high school diploma (31 less than last year), 2,901 of which are internal and 55 external (the so-called private candidates). About half concern high schools (scientific first), followed by technical institutes and then professional ones. There are 53 exam centers, 78 commissions (with the same number of presidents), 155 classes (7 less than in 2023).
The same commissions will be set up on Monday 17 June to plan the work to be done, while the final year high school students will return to the classroom on Wednesday 19 June to take the first written test, Italian, common to all courses. The following day there will be the second test which concerns the disciplines characterizing the individual study paths. Then, after the correction of the writings, an oral interview is scheduled which has the aim of ascertaining the achievement of the educational, cultural and professional profile of each candidate. The work of the commissions will have as a fundamental reference the class council document, published last May 15, 2023, “which explains the contents, methods, means, spaces and times of the training course, the criteria, the evaluation tools adopted and the objectives achieved, as well as any other element that the class council itself deems useful and significant for the purposes of carrying out the exam”, as stated in the relevant ministerial order. The tracks and problems of the first and second written tests will be communicated electronically to the schools on the same day as the tests.
As regards the interview, however, this takes place starting from the candidate’s analysis of the material chosen by the commission, relating to the National Indications for High Schools and the Guidelines for technical and professional institutes. The final grade is expressed in hundredths divided as follows: maximum 40 points for school credit, accrued over the last three years; maximum 20 points for the first written test; maximum 20 points for the second written test, maximum 20 points for the interview. The commission can assign up to 5 “bonus” points for those who have a school credit of at least thirty points and achieve an overall result in the exam tests equal to at least fifty points.
Franco Veroli
