MATSEC students placed under mandatory quarantine during the September examination sessions will be allowed a provisional entry to University, provided that they will sit for the December examination sessions, Education Minister Owen Bonnici said.

This clarification was brought about on Thursday, after the student organisation SDM had a meeting with Bonnici and MATSEC representatives to discuss the numerous issues which MATSEC students have brought up in the past few days.

The meeting comes after it was reported that students had sent emails expressing their concerns regarding the upcoming September session MATSEC O’ level and A’ level examinations.

Whilst the numbers of local coronavirus cases has spiked, the MATSEC board have insisted that September examinations will still take place as planned.

On a Facebook post, SDM stated that the meeting highlighted a number of concerns and brought about clarification on certain issues. SDM also highlighted that MATSEC have confirmed that the examination venues and timetables are currently being finalised and will be published soon.

MATSEC students placed under mandatory quarantine during the September sessions will be allowed provisional entry to University and will be eligible to sit for their examinations in the December resit session.

This does not apply for students who applied for ‘Doctor of Medicine and Surgery’ as their preference and are placed under mandatory quarantine during their exams and will be eligible to take their exam at home in the presence of a fully gowned and protected invigilator.

This will be done since the ‘Doctor of Medicine and Surgery’ course requirements state that all results have to be obtained in one certificate.

Any students testing positive for COVID-19 will not be eligible to sit for their exam and will be considered as absent due to sickness. These candidates will need to sit for an examination resit in the December session as per normal procedure.

Students sitting for their O’ level exams in September session will not be eligible for a resit. This is due to the fact that the September session will not be considered as the second sitting after the predictive grading was published.

Exam candidates are obliged to wear a mask/visor in all common areas in the exam venue, before entering, exiting the exam venue and also being excused to the bathroom. Students are not expected to wear the mask/visor during the exam. All desks will be distanced two meters apart as per the official public health guidelines and all staff and invigilators will be wearing a mask/visor throughout the whole exam session.

All of the exam venues have been assessed and the maximum capacity of students present in the venue at the same time has been reduced to accommodate desks which are spread two meters apart and adhering to all public health guidelines. SDM stated that classrooms will only be having around 12 students per class.

SDM urged all students and parents to not gather in masses before and after the exams.