The results of the main session of the National Multisubject Testing (NMT) 2026 have revealed a worrying trend: the share of participants who failed to reach the minimum required threshold in at least one subject reached 14.83%. This is an increase of 1.32 percentage points compared to the previous year.

Scale of the Session and Participant Structure

The main NMT-2026 session took place from May 20 to June 25. A total of 324,284 people participated, representing more than 91.49% of all registered applicants. However, despite the high turnout, over 14% of participants were unable to overcome the passing barrier.

Experts note that the results were influenced by the structure of the participants. In 2026, 102,955 graduates from previous years registered for the main sessions, whereas there were 251,508 current-year graduates. For comparison, last year the share of previous graduates was significantly lower — 80,561 people versus 236,530 current graduates.

Reasons for Failure: Not Test Difficulty, but Systemic Issues

Tatiana Vakulenko, Head of the Ukrainian Center for Assessment of Education Quality (UCAEQ), explained that the rise in the number of "failures" was not due to the complexity of the tasks, but rather a combination of external factors.

"This is a consequence of a number of factors, not simply evidence of 'difficult tasks' or 'lazy children'. Such figures can be linked to the cumulative impact of prolonged educational crises — the pandemic and the full-scale war, which led to systemic interruptions in learning (air raids, blackouts) and the loss of a significant number of instructional hours," Vakulenko emphasized.

According to experts, prolonged distance learning reduced students' motivation and their ability to self-organize. Furthermore, statistics show that among graduates from previous years, the share of those who fail to meet the threshold is traditionally higher.

Dynamics of Results

The growth in the number of those who did not pass the test has been observed for several years:

  • In 2024, 14.38% of participants failed to meet the threshold.
  • Last year, this figure was 13.51%.
  • In 2026, it rose to 14.83%.

The head of UCAEQ also noted that the center's specialists strictly adhere to requirements for the balance and equal difficulty of test items for each session. Thus, the increase in the number of unsuccessful attempts does not indicate that the assessment tool itself has become more difficult.

Outcomes and Next Steps

On July 3, all participants of the main NMT-2026 session received their results, which were posted to applicants' personal accounts. It is worth remembering that in addition to NMT scores, the final indicator for admission is influenced by weighting coefficients established for each specialty, as well as the "additional bonuses" provided for certain categories of applicants.