School-leaving exams: 96.8 per cent passed. Sardinia has the highest number of failures (7 per cent)

96.8 per cent of students have been admitted to this year’s school-leaving exams, whilst 3.2 per cent have not been admitted. The highest number of students who have failed to qualify is in Sardinia, where as many as 7% will not be able to sit the state exams. Liguria comes second, with 5.5% of students not admitted.

The highest percentage of successful applicants is in Molise, at 97.7 per cent, followed by Veneto (97.3 per cent) and Basilicata (97.2 per cent). Five regions stand at 97 per cent: Abruzzo, Campania, Lazio, Lombardy and Marche,

The Maturità exams will begin tomorrow, Thursday 18 June 2026, with the first paper, Italian. The second paper will follow on Friday 19. There are 527,747 candidates sitting the exam, an increase of 0.6 per cent compared with the 524,415 in 2025. Specifically, there are 513,738 internal candidates, compared with 511,349 last year (an increase of 0.5%). There are 14,009 external candidates, compared with 13,066 in 2025 (an increase of 7.2 per cent).

The breakdown of candidates by type of study programme shows that 273,959 candidates come from general upper secondary schools, 167,104 from technical upper secondary schools and 86,684 from vocational upper secondary schools. The 13,996 examination boards, which took up their posts on Tuesday 16 June, are composed of an external chairperson, two external members and two members from within the school.