Standardized tests

Controversy is mounting over Türkiye's university entrance exam system amid allegations that students with negative scores are being admitted to universities, a claim the higher education authority strongly denies.

It is not too late for so-called "perpetual students" at Greek universities to start considering their future.

Türkiye's recent nationwide university entrance exam results reveal an overwhelming interest in the fields of artificial intelligence, digitalization and big data.

Out of 1.2 million university placements available for such departments, 987,000 were filled, underscoring a shift toward technology-focused programs.

High school graduates in Greece have nine days to submit their university subject preferences based on their national exam scores and the minimum entry scores announced Tuesday for each program.

Students took the four university entrance exams last month in subjects aligned with their academic focus, whether in science, the humanities or technical fields.

Almost 60% of candidates in the recent Panhellenic examinations scored less than 50% in the history, physics and mathematics papers, the results from the Education Ministry have shown.

The annual exams, which this year were sat by 90,416 candidates, determine who enters the country's universities.

Over 1 million eighth-grade students on June 2 exerted themselves for nearly three hours to achieve high scores in a nationwide high school entrance exam.

The Education Ministry has announced plans to introduce open-ended questions in nationwide joint exams, marking a departure from the traditional multiple-choice format.

The move aims to offer more comprehensive insights into student learning and ensure consistency across schools, according to Kemal Bülbül, the ministry's director overseeing exams.

Greek students enrolling at private branches of foreign universities founded in Greece will be required to go through the local nationwide university entrance exams and meet some minimum requirements in order to be offered a place, Education Minister Kyriakos Pierrakakis said on Wednesday while unveiling draft legislation allowing the establishment of private universities in the country.

The Ministry of Education has clarified to universities that remote exams for the current winter semester are mandatory for schools and faculties that are under occupation, holding the leaderships of the institutions and academics accountable for any loss of the examination period for students. 

The second written exam of the first semester in the 2023-2024 academic year will take place as a joint exam in mathematics and Turkish language and literature for sixth and ninth graders across Türkiye on Dec. 26-27 for the first time.

Depending on the outcome and success of the pilot test, the National Education Ministry will apply the practice to other subjects.