Latvia plans science exam for 9th graders; exam scores no longer decisive for basic school certificate

Education and Science Minister Ilze Indriksone has outlined several changes planned to take effect from 1 September. Under the proposal, pupils in both basic and secondary school would be allowed to improve their grades, with at least one test per subject open to retakes. Schools themselves would decide how the grade improvement process works.

The results of centralized exams in Grade 9 would no longer affect receipt of the basic education certificate. Indriksone argued that a single failed exam should not cost a student a whole school year or put them at risk of leaving the education system.

At the same time, a centralized natural science exam is planned for Grade 9. The minister said that differences in science knowledge between schools in Latvia have become so wide that they amount to social injustice, and an exam is the only way to curb this inequality. Without such an exam, she said, Latvia would lose its future competitiveness in STEM fields; the decision is a test of courage rather than a technical matter.

Currently, pupils finishing Grade 9 must take three compulsory centralized exams: Latvian, mathematics and a foreign language. To obtain the certificate, pupils previously needed satisfactory annual grades in subjects and had to reach a minimum threshold on exams. According to LSM, since centralized exams were introduced in Grade 9, roughly 800 pupils have failed them each year. This year the pass threshold was 15 percent of the maximum score; 750 pupils failed mathematics and 150 failed Latvian.

Indriksone noted that the decision on a science exam had already been postponed for eight years. This was also the first year that upper secondary school graduates had to take a science exam, and nearly 400 of them failed. The minister said a similar number of ninth-graders might fail, but under the planned changes that would not prevent them from completing basic school.

Plans also call for higher-level exams to become optional. Students aiming for higher education would still be able to take them, while those who do not need such exams could skip them. As the minister explained, the compulsory higher-level exam requirement would be removed, but pupils would still need to sit the optimal level exam.