News

10 June 2026

Ombudsman Velislava Delcheva has approached the Minister of Education and Science Prof. Georgi Valchev regarding reports from students, parents, and teachers about organisational and technical issues that arose during the administration of the second round of compulsory final matriculation exams and the specialised advanced profile training exams.

Complaints submitted to the Institution of the Ombudsman have raised issues related to technical difficulties during the English language exam, including problems with the playback and audibility of audio files in the listening section, which is of critical importance to the final results of high school graduates. According to information circulating in the public domain, approximately 3,000 students in various schools across the country were affected by the problem.

The Ombudsman has also received reports of serious technical difficulties during the state final exam in computer science and information technology, where the digital platform used experienced outages and disrupted the normal conduct of the exam. Parents and students are raising the issue of the need to review the platform and the organisation of the examination process.

The Ombudsman Institution has also received complaints regarding the content of certain questions on the entrepreneurship exam, with calls for an expert assessment of their pedagogical soundness and alignment with the course material. Teachers also raised the issue of ensuring anonymity in grading following the elimination of the second envelope, which had previously been used to separate students’ personal data from their exam papers.

In her recommendation to the Minister of Education, the Ombudsman emphasises that similar complaints have been received for yet another year and that the recurring technical and organisational difficulties raise legitimate doubts about the fairness of the treatment of high school graduates and the smooth conduct of the examination process.

“When thousands of students are placed in conditions different from those intended for the administration of a state exam, the issue is no longer a technical one, but a matter of fairness, trust, and the protection of the right to education. Every high school graduate should be evaluated solely on the basis of their knowledge and preparation, and not on the quality of the technology, the organisation or circumstances that arise by chance during the exam,” Delcheva states categorically.

She recommends that the Ministry of Education submit a report on the measures taken to address the identified issues and prevent their recurrence in future exam sessions, as well as inform the Institution of the results of the inspections conducted.