The General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) is an academic qualification in a range of subjects taken in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, having been introduced in September 1986 and its first exams taken in 1988. State schools in Scotland use the Scottish Qualifications Certificate instead. However, private schools in Scotland often choose to follow the English GCSE system.
Matura or its translated terms is a Latin name for the secondary school exit exam or "maturity diploma" in various European countries, including Albania, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Italy, Kosovo, Liechtenstein, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Poland, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland and Ukraine.
Grading in education is the process of applying standardized measurements for varying levels of achievements in a course. Grades can be assigned as letters, as a range, as a percentage, or as a number out of a possible total.
Seoul Science High School for Gifted Students is an academy for gifted students interested in science. The school was established in 1989, and is located at Jongno-gu, Seoul. It was established as one of the 'Science High Schools' in Republic of Korea. In 2009, it has become an 'Academy for Gifted Students' selected by the Ministry of Education of Korea. Now, it is one of the eight such academies in Republic of Korea.
The Specialized High Schools Admissions Test (SHSAT) is an examination administered to eighth and ninth-grade students residing in New York City and used to determine admission to eight of the city's nine Specialized High Schools. An average of 25,000 students take the test to apply to these schools, and around 5,000 are accepted. The test is given each year in October and November, and students are informed of their results the following March. Those who receive offers decide by the middle of March whether to attend the school the following September. The test is independently produced and graded by American Guidance Service, a subsidiary of Pearson Education, under contract to the New York City Department of Education.
The Secondary School Admission Test (SSAT) is an admission test administered by The Enrollment Management Association in the United States to students in grades 3–11 to provide a standardized measure that will help professionals in independent or private elementary, middle, and high schools to make decisions regarding student test taking.
The International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA)'s Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) is a series of international assessments of the mathematics and science knowledge of students around the world. The participating students come from a diverse set of educational systems in terms of economic development, geographical location, and population size. In each of the participating educational systems, a minimum of 4,000 to 5,000 students is evaluated. Contextual data about the conditions in which participating students learn mathematics and science are collected from the students and their teachers, their principals, and their parents via questionnaires.
Starting in September 2018, 12-year secondary education will replace 11-year which was mandatory before that. As a rule, schooling begins at the age of 6, unless your birthday is on or after 1 September. In 2016/17, the number of students in primary and secondary school reached 3,846,000, in vocational school 285,800, and in higher education 1,586,700 students. According to 2017 EduConf speech of the (then) Minister of Education and Science of Ukraine, Liliya Hrynevych, the amount of budget financing for the sphere of education would reach about ₴53 billion in 2017.
In Austria, academic grades use a 5-point grading scale with no decimals, where:
Academic grading in Canada varies by province, level of education, by institution, and faculty. The following are commonly used conversions from percentage grades to letter grades, however, this is not necessarily meaningful, since there is not a uniform scheme for assigning percentage grades either.
Germany uses a 5- or 6-point grading scale (GPA) to evaluate academic performance for the youngest to the oldest students. Grades vary from 1 to 5. In the final classes of German Gymnasium schools that prepare for university studies, a point system is used with 15 points being the best grade and 0 points the worst. The percentage causing the grade can vary from teacher to teacher.
There are two grading systems used in Italy:
The ECTS grading scale is a grading system defined in the European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS) framework by the European Commission. Since many grading systems co-exist in Europe and, considering that interpretation of grades varies considerably from one country to another, if not from one institution to another, the ECTS grading scale has been developed to provide a common measure and facilitate the transfer of students and their grades between European higher education institutions, by allowing national and local grading systems to be interchangeable. Grades are reported on a carefully calibrated and uniform A-to-F scale combined with keywords and short qualitative definitions. Each institution makes its own decision on how to apply the ECTS grading scale to its system.
The Tunisian grading system is mostly an over 20 point grading scale: it is used in secondary schools and universities, similar to the french grading system. For primary schools, a new system has been introduced, based on a letter-grade scale; the old system uses a 10-point grading scale for the first term and a 20-point scale for the second and third terms.
Academic grading in Croatia is regulated by the Ministry of Science, Education and Sports.
This article introduces the academic grading systems in the Czech Republic.
Academic grading in France is structured and rigorous, with a focus on assessment through written exams and a set of standardized scales for measuring student achievement.
Serbia inherited the academic grading system of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The grading process uses an absolute achievement scale to determine the grade of a student.
Education in Belgium is organised on the level of the three communities.
In the United States, academic grading commonly takes on the form of five, six or seven letter grades. Traditionally, the grades are A+, A, A−, B+, B, B−, C+, C, C−, D+, D, D− and F, with A+ being the highest and F being lowest. In some cases, grades can also be numerical. Numeric-to-letter-grade conversions generally vary from system to system and between disciplines and status.
