Goodbye repair exams in September: now they will take place in August

Minister Valditara revolutionizes the remedial exams. And in one fell swoop it shortens the summer holidays of the teachers and forces families and students into a tour de force to make up for the shortages accumulated in nine months of lessons, in some cases, in just one month.

Once, tired of the student’s lack of commitment, the professor threatened him with the fateful phrase: “If you continue like this, I’ll send you back to September”. Classes began in October and the dreaded remedial exams were held in September. Now the professor will no longer be able to address lazy students in this way. Because from this year the exams will take place in August.

The Circular of Valditara

On 13 June, the Minister of Education and Merit enters with a straight leg on the remedial exams. The circular appears to be one intended for anonymity. But no. The note communicates to school administrators the new dates by which to send the data relating to the final results of the pupils. To anticipate the start-up of the school year, Viale Trastevere communicates that “starting from this year, it will not be possible to access the transmission functions of the final results beyond the dates indicated in this note”.

“This advance”, explain the ministry, “is necessary in the context of the ‘Simplification plan for school’ which among the objectives includes, in particular, the creation of a single online platform thanks to which families and students can consult the information and data necessary to make an informed choice of the school and post-school path, to use all digital services in an organic and personalized way for orientation, enrollments, payments and communications” and much more.

For the communication of the results relating to students with suspended judgment, those who were once called “postponed to September”, the window opens on 16 August and closes on 31 August. Only in exceptional cases can this date be postponed to 8 September. But the ministry “invites you to respect the times indicated”. Therefore, the exams must be carried out before the end of August.

In all schools, the calendar of school operations is established at the beginning of the year, in September last year for 2022/2023, and the circular disrupts the programming. At the Virgilio art high school in Empoli, given the minister’s circular, the headmaster last June 21st Valeria Alberti he invited the teachers “to resubmit the holiday request”.

Exams in August

In many Italian high schools, the exams will begin on August 24, the date that will allow the ballots to be carried out and the results to be communicated to the ministry by the end of the month. This is the case of the Ricasoli agricultural technical institute in Siena whose teachers are called into service starting from Thursday 24 August, in the middle of summer. In the Tuscan institute the exams will end on August 26 and then we will proceed with the final ballots. The same goes for the Einaudi institute in Palmi, in the province of Reggio Calabria, where exams for the different courses will begin on August 24th and end on August 29th.

And the institutes that have many postponed to September anticipate a few more days: to August 23 at the Giovanni Falcone high school in Gallarate in the Varese area and even on the 22nd, exactly one week after August 15, at the Don Milani in Montichiari, in the province of Brescia.

Already in past years, some of the institutes had brought the repair exams forward to the end of August to ensure that they were the same teachers who had sent the students back to examine them in September. But now comes the obligation. In 2022, at the Federico Caffè institute in Rome, with scientific high school and technical institute addresses, the repair exams took place from 2 to 6 September. This year, to comply with the new provisions, they have already taken place two months earlier. From 10 to 12 July.

A choice, that of bringing the exams forward just a month after the end of the lessons (in Lazio the lessons ended on 8 June) shared by other schools, such as the Vincenzo Lanza classical high school in Foggia which has already concluded all the operations, started on 10 July and concluded on 14. But it leaves us perplexed. Is 30 days enough for students to make up for the shortcomings accumulated over nine months and perhaps in several disciplines?

Teacher holidays

The advance requested by the ministry will eat away at least one week in the month of August from high school teachers, who are often busy at maturity. This year, the written test in Italian for the state exams took place on 21 June. And in several cases the maturity ended between 4 and 10 July. Teachers’ holidays amount to 36 working days, excluding Sundays and public holidays. To return to service on 22, 23 or 24 August, it is necessary to have completed the final exams on 8 or 10 July. And one day earlier if the feast of the patron saint of the municipality of the teacher’s service school falls between July and August. Otherwise the professors are forced to give up a few days off.