Minister of Education and Science, Spiro Ristovski, at a press conference Monday presented changes to the pattern for passing a matriculation exam.

Under the new amendments in the academic year 2014/2015 mathematics will be the third compulsory subject for gymnasium students and in the 2015/2016 for high school graduates in the vocational education. Only students of the secondary art schools are exempted, as they do not learn mathematics.

The transfer from tow to three external courses will commence with the students who will graduate this school year. The state exam will be conducted under the model 1+2, Ristovski said. In addition to native and foreign language or mathematics, gymnasium students and graduates from vocational schools will have another external course selected from the curriculum of their schools.

International practices clearly show that countries that are strongly focused on math register much better results in any segment of education, Ristovski said.