The Ministry of Education has sent an information note to schools on the final exam which this year returns to the pre-pandemic mode and therefore to be configured according to the regulatory provisions of the 2017 decree. A document which provides «summary information on the conduct of the 2023 state exam, which does not innovate the regulatory framework but, more simply, recalls it in its characters general, to promote their knowledge in particular by students and their families”. «Possible exception – reads the text – the paths for transversal skills and orientation (PCTO), for which the pandemic has caused difficulties in carrying out the activities and, in some cases, the failure to reach the expected time target. For these reasons, the obligation to carry out the PCTO activities for admission to the 2023 State Exam could subsequently cease to exist, subject to the enactment of a specific law. , of the INVALSI tests, as an admission requirement. In this regard, it is recalled that the legislation does not provide for connections between the results of the INVALSI tests and the results of the state exam”.
The exam will consist of two national written tests and an interview. The first written test will verify the mastery of the Italian language or of the different language in which the teaching takes place, as well as the students’ expressive, logical-linguistic and critical skills. The first test will be common to all fields of study and will take place in the same way in all institutes, with a maximum duration of 6 hours. Candidates will be able to choose between different types and themes. Seven tracks will be proposed, transversal to all fields of study, which can refer to the artistic, literary, historical, philosophical, scientific, technological, economic and social fields. The second written test will focus on one or more disciplines characterizing the course of study. With a specific ministerial decree, the disciplines covered by the second written test will be identified by January 2023. Specific provisions will also be provided regarding the declination of this test in relation to the professional education pathways affected by the recent reorganisation. A third written test is foreseen in some particular cases (for the ESABAC, ESABAC techno sections with an international option, for schools in the Valle d’Aosta, in the Autonomous Province of Bolzano and for schools with a Slovenian teaching language). As regards the oral interview, the ministry recalls that it will take place in a multi- and interdisciplinary key in order to assess the student’s ability to grasp the links between the different knowledge by linking them appropriately to each other and will be aimed at ascertaining the achievement of the cultural, educational and professional. In detail, the aforementioned legislative decree 62/2017 provides that: «The purpose of the interview is to ascertain the achievement of the cultural, educational and professional profile of the student. To this end, the commission” therefore “proposes the candidate to analyze texts, documents, experiences, projects, problems to verify the acquisition of the contents and methods of the individual disciplines, the ability to use the acquired knowledge and to connect them to argue in critical and personal way even using the foreign language. As part of the interview, the candidate explains, through a short report and/or a multimedia report, the experience of school-work experience carried out in the course of study». In essence, it will be a matter of verifying the candidate’s ability to connect the knowledge acquired in a multidisciplinary perspective.
As regards the indicative value of the interview, the ministry underlines: “In the renewed regulatory framework defined by the Guidelines for orientation – issued in recent days in implementation of the reform envisaged by the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR) – there is also the indicative value of the State exam interview which, in its multidisciplinary dimension, will allow each candidate to deepen aspects of the disciplinary areas most congenial to him. To this end, in carrying out the interviews, the examination commission will take into account the information contained in the student’s Curriculum (from which the candidate’s educational experiences in school and in non-formal and informal contexts emerge). Furthermore, in the part of the interview dedicated to PCTOs, the candidate will be able to highlight the meaning of this experience in an indicative key”.
The final evaluation will be defined with the distribution of the 100 points available to the commission, in this way: school credit maximum 40 points; first written maximum 20 points; second written maximum 20 points; maximum interview 20 points. The minimum overall score to pass the state exam is sixty cents. As regards the composition of the Commissions, they will return to their ordinary structure and will therefore be composed of a president from outside the school, three members from within the school and three external members. The note, signed by the head of department Stefano Versari, concludes with “the hope” that this information document “may facilitate knowledge of the general procedures for carrying out the state exam of the second cycle of education 2023, especially by those who will be called to bear the evidence. The intent is to help you understand and rationalize the task you are faced with. Fundamental to these ends is the construction of educating communities capable of concretely accompanying our young people in one of the most important scholastic passages» concludes the document.
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Maturity, back to the old days: the ministry sends the new rules to the schools