Emergent News

The high school exams planned for Wednesday in North Rhine-Westphalia have been postponed to Friday at short notice due to massive technical problems. "The disruption and short-term postponement of the Abitur exams is extremely annoying," said NRW School Minister Dorothee Feller on Tuesday evening. The high school graduates had prepared intensively for their exams. However, the disruption prevented the download of the examination tasks, so that the schools could not get the tasks in time. The examination subjects biology, chemistry, nutrition, computer science, physics and technology are affected. The nationwide download for schools was opened by the ministry at 12 noon on Tuesday. Sabine Mistler, state chairman of the North Rhine-Westphalia Association of Philologists, said that many schools could not have downloaded the exams, or only partially. Many teachers had waited until the evening for the download to be cancelled. "Some of the students and teachers are really angry," said Mistler. It must now be checked very thoroughly what caused it, because on Wednesday the download for the regular exams on Thursday will start again. "We expect reliable and fast communication from the ministry instead of having the teachers wait in the schools until well after 7 p.m.," said a spokesman for the GEW union. Many teachers are worried. The ministry will "work through the disruption intensively" together with the external service provider, the minister promised. It is about "drawing the necessary conclusions so that the tests can be carried out without problems on the following days".