Maturita takes place over the course of one week at the end of May or the beginning of June during a student's senior year of secondary school. After the maturita week ends, students have officially finished their secondary school careers. In an important reform since 1989, the questions on the maturita exam are developed by teachers or groups of teachers at individual schools. At the beginning of their senior year in high school students are given a list of between twenty seven to thirty topics or questions which will form the backbone of the year's curriculum. These topics and questions are also those about which they will be asked during their exams.
Students sit for all four of their exams on one day.
Each exam takes fifteen minutes. After fifteen minutes they are called up before the committee which will examine them. This person, who is assigned by the Ministry of Education, comes from another district and should not have any ties to the school. The function of the externista, I learned is to make sure that the process runs smoothly and also to bring greater objectivity to the process and to increase comparability across schools. Having selected a question and prepared something of a response, the student sits flanked by the examining teachers and opposite the rest of the committee.