August retake of matura exams on 12 and 14 August; testing in four cities

The August session for external matura exams for candidates who did not pass or did not complete them in June will be held on August 12 and August 14, starting at 9:00. The State Examination Centre reports that 1,328 candidates are registered for the state matura in August, 126 for the vocational matura and 6 for the artistic matura.

On August 12 candidates will sit the elective external exam — either mathematics or English. There are no candidates in August for other foreign languages (German, French, Italian and Russian), which are only taken by gymnasium students, nor for the history exam reserved for the artistic matura.

Exam venues reduced to four cities and eight locations

Because far fewer students are taking the exams in August compared with June, this session will be organised in four cities across eight locations. Tests will again be held at university faculties — the Faculty of Economics, the Faculty of Civil Engineering and the Faculty of Pedagogy in Skopje — and at faculties in Tetovo, Prilep and Shtip. From high schools, the only exam venue will be the sports hall of ASUC "Boro Petrushevski" in Skopje, where pupils from several schools will be tested. The State Examination Centre has published a list on its website so students can check the specific location assigned to their school.

Among those taking the matura this week are 226 graduates whose June exams were annulled — some were caught cheating during the exam, and others were found to have cheated after their tests were reviewed.

The average grade for the June matura session across all three types introduced this year (state matura, state vocational matura and state artistic matura) was 3.66. The average for the state matura was 3.62, for the vocational matura 3.91 and for the artistic matura 3.59. Last year the average was 3.69, while in 2024 it was 3.26.

“We can be completely satisfied and I hope that we will maintain this result. We already just need to sustain it. If it is higher we will be overjoyed. I assess that these are objective results. The schools, the faculties where some of the tests were organised, the testers who numbered around 2,500, about 200 observers and the graders were well prepared. Of course, the students took the process seriously. This year, for the first time, exams were conducted under a new Concept that provided three types of matura, so that all students were tested on the material they actually studied during the four years of secondary education, which was not the case in the past when everyone was tested on the same material. I am pleased that for two years in a row we record a nearly identical average, unlike in 2024 when it was 3.26,” said Minister of Education and Science Vesna Janevska.

For the June 2025/2026 school-year session, 14,587 pupils had registered: 12,184 for the state matura, 2,276 for the state vocational matura and 127 for the state artistic matura. A total of 348 registered candidates — 2.39% — did not attend the exams.

After the June external exam results were published, 805 appeals were filed, equal to 2.86% of all matriculation candidates who sat the exams. Some appeals were accepted for part of the candidates, representing 0.95% of the appeals submitted. A total of 133 students reviewed their test papers.

Photo: press material from the event