EDUCATION Minister Martin Fronc has issued a new directive on school exit exams to enable a comparison to be made between students of different high schools for university admissions. The new school exit exam reports will include percentages stating the student's ranking compared to all other students who took the exam, the SITA news agency wrote.
The new directive will come into effect in September 2005.
The minister stated that the new directive represents another step towards a higher quality of high school education in Slovakia. Percentages will indicate whether a student belongs among Slovakia's top academics or whether they fall below the majority. Universities or employers will thus be able to recruit the best students based on this information.
The new ministerial directive also reflects inadequacies reported by students in school exit exams this year. Geography will be added to natural science subjects, from which students must choose one subject to be examined on. Students will be allowed to modify the subjects chosen by October 15. The list of foreign languages for the external part of the exam was extended and will now include French, Italian, Spanish or Russian, in addition to this year's English and German.
