"The percentage of high school graduates deciding to not take the state exams was 17 percent, in numbers a little over 3,000," the head of the evaluation agency at the educational Innove Foundation, Aule Udde said, speaking on Vikerraadio morning show "Vikerhommik".

She added that at the end of January, when the emergency situation wasn´t yet established, there were 18,551 students planning to take the exams, whereas now the number is 15,300.

"In my opinion, this is a good result. As of today, May 12, we can say that the state exams are happening and students want to take them," Udde added.

Due to the emergency situation, the government ruled that students can choose whether they want to take the exams or not, in other words a school can be graduated from without taking the exams. May 11 was the deadline for students to decide whether they were going to take the exams or not.

Those who later want to will be able to take the exams, either in autumn or another date in the future.

Mathematics turned out to be the most opted-out-of exam.

"Students mainly decided to not take maths; this number was 1,900. As regards the Estonian language exam, 800 students [dropped out]. This is dependent on students' future directions, and if maths is required in the entering of the universities," Udde noted.

These are in fact the only two mandatory exams - Estonian and maths.

In an ordinary situation, students would have had to take an additional school exam, which the student can choose themselves, and an English exam as well.

Additionally, the exams would have already been taken, but now, the Estonian exam has been put back to May 29, and the maths one on June 5.

"We will do everything for the results of the exams to be published by June 30," Udde promised.

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