Secondary school exams are about to begin, but don’t worry: only 0.1% will fail, and 10% of candidates will achieve top marks

Another extremely interesting finding concerns the gender breakdown, which shows a clear dominance of female students. Girls consistently achieve better results than their male counterparts, particularly at the highest levels: 14.9% of female students graduate with a ‘10’ or ‘10 with honours’, compared to 8.2% of boys.
This gap, which translates into a final average mark that is approximately 0.42 points higher for girls, is driven primarily by the written Italian exam, where female students outperform their male counterparts by as much as 0.7 points, whilst in the dreaded maths exam the gap – still in the girls’ favour – narrows to just 0.3 points.

The final piece of the puzzle is the citizenship factor: Italian pupils have an advantage right from the start (99% compared to 95% of foreign students) and maintain an average lead of around 0.8 points in the exam papers, with the exception of the foreign language written paper, where the gap narrows to 0.5 points.

But how does the lower secondary school leaving exam actually work? As mentioned, Skuola.net has put together a guide summarising the key stages of the 2026 lower secondary school leaving exam.
The first step is, of course, admission, which is not automatic but requires students to have attended at least three-quarters of the annual timetable, to have taken the INVALSI tests in April and to have a conduct mark of no less than six. An important detail, at the discretion of the Class Council, is the possibility of being admitted even if a student has failed certain subjects, based on an assessment of their overall performance over the three-year period.
Once admitted, the major advantage over the Maturità (and a further reassuring factor) is the composition of the examination board: the students will be assessed exclusively by their own school teachers, who are well acquainted with the progress of each individual pupil.

The written exams are spread over three days. They begin with Italian, where candidates must demonstrate their ability to summarise and express themselves by choosing between a narrative-descriptive text, an argumentative text, or a reading comprehension passage. This is followed by the challenge of Mathematics, which focuses on problem-solving, geometry and computational thinking. The written exams conclude with the Foreign Languages test, a single exam combining English and the second language studied (which varies from school to school).
The grand finale is the interdisciplinary oral interview. In this stage, which covers all subjects, the famous ‘tesina’ plays a key role: a written piece to serve as a starting point, extremely useful for breaking the ice and logically linking different disciplines based on a topic of the candidate’s choice.
Also during the oral exam, teachers will assess reasoning skills and place great emphasis on Citizenship, a core subject that can range from sustainability to human rights. For those studying the music stream, the oral exam also includes a practical performance on an instrument.

The final assessment will bring the process full circle. As Skuola.net points out, the final mark, expressed as a decimal, is calculated by taking the arithmetic mean of the admission mark and the average of the marks obtained in the three written exams and the oral interview. To secure your diploma, you simply need to achieve a pass mark, i.e. 6/10, but for the most outstanding candidates there is the chance to reach the maximum mark of 10/10, to which the examination board may decide to add the coveted distinction.

Finally, a reminder of the rules to be observed in the examination hall: to keep track of the time available during written exams, the only device permitted is a standard analogue watch, whilst the use of smartphones and smartwatches is strictly prohibited and may result in the immediate cancellation of the exam.

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