site.btaNew End-Year Math Exams for 7th, 10th Graders to Integrate Other Subjects in 2026

Starting in the new 2025/2026 school year, the national external assessment tests for seventh and tenth grade mathematics will include problems that integrate other subjects, according to an order issued by Minister of Education and Science Krasimir Valchev on August 26 and published on the Ministry of Education and Science website.

The order specifies that for 7th-graders the national external assessment exam in mathematics, integrating other subjects at the end of seventh grade in the 2025/2026 school year, will be in the form of a test that integrates the following subjects: mathematics, biology and health education, chemistry and environmental protection, physics and astronomy, geography and economics, Man and Nature (a subject covering natural sciences). Schoolchildren will have 180 minutes to solve 24 problems.

The test for 10th-grade students will include all the same subjects but Man Nature. Children who take it will have 120 minutes to solve 18 problems.

The proposed changes were presented by Valchev at a press conference on July 23. At the press conference, Valchev said that the main problem with the Bulgarian education system is that it continues to be dominated by a culture of rote learning at the expense of understanding and acquiring skills.