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There are more than 156 thousand students registered for the 1st phase of secondary school exams, which represents an increase of around 4.7% compared to 149,689, according to data from the National Examinations Jury, released this Monday by the Ministry of Education.
Of the 156,667 registered for the 1st phase of the national exams , 87,386 are female (56% of the total) and 69,281 are male (44%). These students, as a whole, will take 288,227 national exams.
Of the more than 156,000 registered students, 54,195 are taking the exam solely with the aim of applying for higher education , that is, 35% of the total, and on average each student takes more than one exam. There are also 35,933 students who intend to take at least one improvement exam.
As in previous years, Portuguese (44,421), Biology and Geology (43,281), Physics and Chemistry A (40,290) and Mathematics A (38,732) are the tests with the highest number of applicants.
As for the course of registration, scientific-humanistic courses , as usual, represent the vast majority of registrations (86%), with 9% of registrants coming from professional courses.
This academic year, new rules for access to higher education will come into effect in stages. The diploma was approved last year by the previous socialist government and in practice , students will have to take three exams to complete secondary education , with the Portuguese exam being mandatory.