Coronavirus – Opposition parties against organising school-leaving exams

Opposition parties on Thursday proposed alternative solutions to how school leaving exams are organised this spring, saying that the government’s solution posed too much uncertainty and a risk to students’ health.

Gergely Gulyás, the head of the Prime Minister’s Office, said earlier that school-leaving exams will start on May 4 and will for the most part comprise written tests only. Oral exams will only be organised for subjects for which written tests are not an option.

• Coronavirus – Taskforce proposes reducing school-leaving exams to written test
• Coronavirus – Is distance learning available for every Hungarian student?

Conservative Jobbik has submitted a draft resolution to parliament proposing that secondary school and university students should be offered final exam grades based on their averages. Koloman Brenner, the party’s deputy group leader, said secondary school students should be offered a school-leaving exam grade for each of their subjects based on their average.

For university students, the final exam grade should be calculated by weighting their subject grades with their credit point value and their thesis grade, he said.

Brenner added, however, that students should also be given the option of taking the exams as proposed by the government.

Meanwhile, the leftist Democratic Coalition is calling for the school-leaving exams to be postponed indefinitely. Gergely Arató, the party’s deputy group leader, told an online press conference that the exams should be organised at least a month after the epidemic has subsided.