Matriculaton exams 2019: better results, but more failed students on the district level
At first it may seem that the matriculation exam results published by the Ministry of Education show significant decrease in the average grade in Bulgarian Language and Literature - from 4.24 last year to 4.06 in 2019. On the national level this is the sharpest fall from one year to another since the beginning of the matriculation exams in Bulgaria. The data on the regional level reveal a different situation that we will examine in detail in this article.
District level results in Bulgarian language and literature
Source: Ministry of education, data requested by the IME
As the map above shows, there are barely any changes in the order of districts as compared to 2018 - those that typically score high are leading the ranking, whereas regions with weak performance are again at the bottom. Sofia City continues to get the highest score in the country (4.53, which is of even greater significance taking into account that in this district the largest number of students sat the exam) followed by Varna, Plovdiv and Smolyan which have similar results. There is a shift in the districts with the worst performance - this year the students in Silistra have scored the lowest (3.77) followed by Kardzhali (3.78), Razgrad and Yambol (3.80 in both districts). Most districts score close to “Good” 4.
Source: Ministry of education, data requested by the IME
Much more interesting dynamics can be observed on the district level - although the overall grade on the national level presented by the ministry of education has fallen compared to the previous year, in 23 out of the 28 districts, there is an increase compared to 2018. There is no district, where the decrease is as sharp as the one on the national level - within a year, Smolyan district has lost 0.14 of its average grade compared to 0.18 for the country as a whole, and this is the most substantial drop. In the other districts, where a decrease is present, it is less severe. This contradiction indicates that probably this year there were some specifics in calculating the overall grade for the country. We would be able to check the factuality of this statement when the open data on the school level is published, including the number of students that sat the exam.
Apart from the above-mentioned districts, almost all of the regions have improved in Bulgarian Language and Literature. This is particularly valid for districts with weak performance - Yambol has improved by 0.25, Pleven - 0.23, Vidin and Kardzhali - 0.22. There is still no district that has reached its best results from the past decade, but this could be explained by the different exam structure and stricter control during examination. It is too early to discuss an upward trend in general - the increase within a year could be due to specifics in the edition of the exam; furthermore, matriculation exam results are merely one of many student performance indicators.
Source: Ministry of education, data requested by the IME
The percentage of students that failed the matriculation exam by district comes as no surprise. The most fail grades are in the regions where students have performed poorly - Kardzhali (20.4%), Yambol (18.2%), Silistra (17.7%), while in districts that typically perform better, the share of failed students is smaller – Sofia City (2.64%), Smolyan (4.18%).
It is more disturbing that next to the improvement of the average grades in 2019, we can observe a considerable increase in the number of failed students, which is an (anti)record for the whole history of matriculation exams. Compared to the year before, the most significantly has raised the number of “fail” grades in Razgrad (6.4 pps) and Shumen (6.1 pps); the slowest increase is in Montana (0.9 pps), Gabrovo and Pernik (1.1 pps) and in most districts it is close to 3-4 pps. As with the outcome discussed above, it is possible that the result for 2019 is an abnormality; a mere deviation from the trend in the matriculation exam performance. Otherwise, the greater number of “fail” grades reveals a negative tendency in the literacy of the students and their inability to cover the minimum educational requirements.
Source: Ministry of education, data requested by the IME
In conclusion
The regional results from the matriculation exam this year outline two opposing trends – a considerable rise in the average grade in most districts, but at the same time significant increase in the number of “fail” grades. In other words, students who have not received a “fail” grade have improved their results, but the problem is that the number of failed students increases. Although these trends are contrary to the ones from the previous year, when there was a decrease in the share of “fail” grades, but also a fall in the average grade, we are not able to comment on the long-term performance of the students. It is still unclear how the average grade on national level is calculated, which has dropped dramatically compared to the increase in most districts.
