Schools: one in six pupils has a pending assessment. Resit exams by 8 September (but over 90 per cent pass)

17.7 per cent – almost one in six – of pupils have had their results deferred: the Ministry of Education and Merit has released the figures on secondary school exam results for the 2025/2026 academic year. There is time until 8 September to sit the resit exams, which are usually scheduled between the end of August and the beginning of September, although some schools bring them forward to July.

If a student still fails, they have to repeat the year; however, in the end, only 8 per cent of those who have to repeat – roughly 1 in 12 students – fail to pass the final assessment and are definitively failed. For over 90 per cent of pupils, therefore, the summer wait results in promotion. Almost 1 in 6 pupils – as many as 17.7 per cent of all pupils enrolled in Years 1 to 4 of upper secondary school, according to an analysis by Skuola.net – remained in the summer ‘limbo’ of deferred assessment, having received a failing mark. The proportion of pupils failing at sixth-form level was 5.3 per cent, whilst in the previous academic year there were no cases of suspended assessment and the failure rate stood at around 1 per cent.

An analysis of the Ministry’s data by year of study reveals that the second year of upper secondary school remains the toughest hurdle, recording the highest proportion of pupils awaiting examination results, at 19.7 per cent. This is closely followed by the third year at 18.2 per cent and the first year at 17.6 per cent, whilst the fourth year appears decidedly more lenient at 15.3 per cent. However, those starting secondary school face the greatest immediate risk: it is precisely at the end of the first year that the highest rate of failure in the June exams is recorded, reaching 8.7 per cent.

The type of school also plays a decisive role. In general secondary schools, 15.7 per cent of pupils have had their results deferred, with just 2.9 per cent being failed outright in June. In vocational schools, by contrast, the proportion of students whose results are deferred falls to 14.9 per cent, but the proportion of students not immediately admitted rises to 8.6 per cent, meaning the final tally of those failing is likely to be much higher. The real ‘red zone’, however, is found in technical colleges: here, almost one in four pupils (22.6 per cent) find their results deferred in June, whilst 7.9 per cent are failed outright with no possibility of appeal.

Furthermore, the MIM survey highlights a significant regional disparity in the allocation of school debts between the North and the South. At the top of the regional rankings for pupils awaiting examination results is the Aosta Valley, where the percentage of pupils awaiting results soars to 27.5 per cent (with a further 7.5 per cent failing in June). The ‘tough line’ continues in Liguria (with 23.5 per cent of pupils held back), followed by Veneto (22.9 per cent), Sardinia (22.9 per cent) and, tied for third place, Lombardy and Friuli-Venezia Giulia (both at 22.7 per cent). By contrast, the regions of Southern Italy continue to record the lowest percentages of pupils required to repeat the year in September. The lowest figure is recorded in Puglia, where only 10.1 per cent of pupils were required to retake exams in the summer.