New PE matriculation exam will test skills, not fitness

A new physical education exam will assess practical skills rather than fitness, Yle reports. Students who started upper secondary school this autumn will be the first able to take it, in autumn 2029.

Half of the exam score will come from practical tasks and half from a written test. The practical assessment is designed to measure equipment handling, body and movement control, and a sense of rhythm.

At Schildt Upper Secondary School in Jyväskylä, first-year students on the sports programme are trying out sample tasks released by the Matriculation Examination Board. The examples include handling a ball around cones, movement skills and a rhythm exercise.

Candidates will have four minutes to complete each practical task and may repeat it within that time. Their attempts will be recorded, and they will choose the one they consider their best. The performances will be assessed qualitatively.

Physical ability is not the aim

Kasper Salin, an associate professor at the University of Jyväskylä’s Faculty of Sport and Health Sciences who has helped develop the exam, said the tasks are not performance tests designed to rank candidates.

“This is an exam in physical education, not a sports or fitness test. The aim is to assess what is taught in upper secondary education,” Salin said.

The board’s four sample tasks are being tested at schools to see how they work in practice. Feedback has been encouraging, but the tasks will not be used unchanged in the final exam. The actual tasks will be confidential and vary between exam sessions.

The written part will follow the format of other written matriculation exams. Its content is not yet known, as planning began only this autumn. How the PE grade might count towards admission to sport science programmes, the Emergency Services Academy or police training is also still being considered.

PE teacher Sami Jalkanen said adding the subject to the matriculation exams could give it greater standing alongside other subjects and encourage more students to take part in physical activity.

Art and music will also become available as matriculation exam subjects in autumn 2029.