Supplementary exams: here are the rules for changing course

The Ministry of Education and Merit has published the long-awaited Ministerial Order No. 163 of 7 August 2026, which governs the conduct of supplementary examinations in upper secondary education.

Under these regulations, supplementary examinations must be completed before the start of term. For this year, however, the accompanying note provides, on a transitional basis, for the possibility of sitting them by 30 September.

The main provisions of the measure relate, first and foremost, to the first two years of secondary school. Anyone wishing to change their course, stream or specialisation must first submit an application to their chosen school by 31 January and attend an interview with the teachers of the new class. This is not a test to be passed or failed: the aim is to identify which topics the student has not yet covered, so that the school can organise, if necessary, some targeted catch-up lessons before or during the transition. This applies, for example, to a student in the first year of a science-focused sixth-form college who wishes to transfer to the Computer Science and Telecommunications stream at a technical college: the interview serves to assess what they have already studied and to fill any gaps in their knowledge, without the need for a formal exam.

The situation is different for pupils who have already been promoted to Year 3 or for those who have not been admitted to the next year group from Year 3 onwards. In these cases, an interview is no longer sufficient: pupils must sit a proper supplementary examination, held in a single sitting which must be completed before the start of term. The exam is marked by a panel of at least three teachers, chaired by the headteacher, and pupils are only promoted if they achieve a mark of at least 0.6 in each subject covered by the exam. This applies, for example, to a student who has been promoted to the third year of a classical grammar school and wishes to transfer to the Administration, Finance and Marketing course at a technical and economic college: they will have to sit the exam on the core subjects of the new course, such as business studies or law.

In practice, the distinction between the two procedures depends on the outcome of the final assessment at the end of the second year: a student who is not admitted to the next year at the end of the second year may change course simply by attending a guidance interview, whilst a student who has progressed from the second to the third year must sit supplementary examinations if they wish to change course.