Matsec O Level, A Level and Intermediate exam results were published on Friday for thousands of students, but results show that hundreds again failed their Maltese, English and maths exams.

A breakdown of figures provided by the Education Ministry shows that 4,938 students sat for O Level exams, which lead to post-secondary educational institutions, while 4,237 students sat for Intermediate and A Level exams, which lead to tertiary educational institutions.

Students who sat for their O Level in June and did not obtain a grade between 1 and 7 but received a failing ‘U’ grade, meant that their result is considered unclassified.

Figures show that this year, 17% of students who sat for Maltese, 18% who sat for Maths and 14% who sat for an English language exam only managed to obtain a ‘U’ grade.

Since May exams had to be suspended last year due to the Covid-19 pandemic, students were awarded a predicted result based on their Mock exam results. Therefore, those grades could not be compared to this year’s.

However, when looking at 2019 and comparing those results to 2021, figures show that results were very similar. 19% of students who sat for their Maltese exam, 17% who sat for Maths and 12% who sat for English obtained a ‘U’ grade.

The Matsec examiners’ report also shows that not many students managed to achieve high grades.

A total of 642 out of 3,706 students who sat for their Maltese exam, failed. This was also the case with 762 of the 4,162 students who did their maths exam. Meanwhile, 575 students of the 4,086 who did their English language exam failed as well.

In all the three core subjects, the majority of students obtained low marks, leaving only a few to score higher marks.

Figures show that in English, a total of 772 students obtained a Grade 5, followed by 741 students obtaining a Grade 3. A low number of 177 students managed to obtain the highest grade.

When looking at the results obtained in maths and Maltese, it seems that students did slightly better as many of them managed a Grade 4 result.

Core subjects are compulsory and taught to students throughout mandatory schooling years at both primary and secondary levels. They are needed for students to move to post-secondary education. Some institutions only accept students who present Grade 1-5 results in their core subjects as well as in subjects they wish to continue studying. 

Meanwhile, when looking at figures on Advanced and Intermediate exams, figures show that the most popular subjects at an A Level were English, Biology and Pure Maths.

776 students sat for the English A-Level with 13 students obtaining an A grade, while 78 students failed to obtain a passing mark.

From 594 Biology students, 71 students obtained the highest mark, while 44 students obtained an A grade in their Pure Maths exams.

At Intermediate level, the most popular subjects were those of Systems of Knowledge (which is compulsory at sixth forms) and English. A total of 2,008 and 1,579 students sat for these exams respectively.

With regards to the O Level exams, the most popular subjects taken by students were Maths, English and Physics.

4,162 students sat for the Maths exams with 298 obtaining the highest mark possible – a 1. 4,078 students sat for their English O Level, while 3,146 students sat for their Physics O-level.

Details on the students’ performance is expected to be published later this year after the supplementary sessions are held next month.