Qhen the Ministry of Education and Merit announced the oral subjects of the oral exam of the 2026 Maturitythe reaction was immediate: anxiety, social irony, catastrophic videos, memes about “national mourning”. For many students, in fact, insert mathematics to Classical, physics to Artistic, science to Linguistic, it felt like a punishment. A pitch invasion. Something that “has nothing to do with it”. Yet, the reading could be completely different. The noise of anxiety was silenced for a moment, that choice of the Ministry, looking at it carefully, it might even appear otherwise.
Maturity 2026: why the oral exam in Mathematics in Classics is not a drama
Daniele Grassucci, director of Skuola.net, undoubtedly believes this: in his opinion, what actually seems like a stretchit could instead prove to be one of the most sensible moves of recent years. Not one more obstacle, but valuable training for the future. For Grassucci the first misunderstanding concerns the nature of the oral exam. In the collective imagination, in fact, it is experienced as a severe interrogation, almost a trap.
An exercise for the future
The director instead invites us to look at a decisive detail: the most feared matters will almost always be entrusted to internal commissionersthat is, to the same teachers who followed the students during the year. Not a stranger called to find gaps, but a professor who knows the path taken. This changes everything. The objective, in fact, he explains, is not to “fail”, but to send a cultural message: grapple with scientific complexity in a familiar and controlled environment. More of an exercise for the future than a punitive test.
Scientific subjects enter the oral exams of Classical, Linguistic and Artistic high schools, creating panic among students (pexels)
Overcoming the idea of ”series B” subjects
For Grassucci, the choice of the Ministry finally breaks an old school hierarchy: the one that has always placed the humanistic disciplines at the center and relegated the sciences to a simple side dish, especially in high schools such as Classics. An approach that today appears outdated. Contemporary reality requires mixed skills: knowing how to read a text, but also interpret data, understand a historical phenomenon but also the functioning of a technology. Continue to keep “humanist” students away from the sciencesobserves Grassucci, does not mean protecting them: it means limiting them.
The power of the word in the AI era
Then there is the theme of work and technological innovation. With the arrival of generative Artificial Intelligence, many technical skills are being automated. Machines already know how to “do”. What becomes decisive is knowing how to “think” and “ask”.
And it’s right hereaccording to Grassucci, that the value of humanistic studies emerges: mastery of language, ability to argue, to structure complex reasoning. However, to truly communicate with machines you also need logic, precision and method. All skills that are trained with mathematics. Not to become scientists, but to become intelligent interlocutors of technology.
The new hybrid professions
This transformation is already reflected in universities and the job market. Companies are increasingly looking for figures halfway between humanistic culture and technical skills: Artificial Intelligence ethicists, computational linguists, digital communication professionals, human-machine interaction designers.
In fact, it is not enough to know the classics, but it is not enough to know how to program either. We need to unite the two worlds. From this perspective, Grassucci underlines, even a mathematics test at the high school diploma becomes a first step towards that “hybrid” education which will be increasingly in demand.
An antidote against fake news and superficiality
Finally, there is a deeper cultural aspect. Living in the age of fake news, misused numbers and manipulated information, the scientific method becomes a defense tool: verify the data, check the sources, don’t trust impressions. Combining the critical spirit of the humanist with the rigor of the scientist it means training citizens who are more aware and less vulnerable to errorshuman or artificial. And this, according to Grassucci, is one of the most urgent educational challenges.
The most complete 2026 Maturity
Classical mathematics, therefore, does not turn anyone into an engineerjust as Greek does not automatically make one philologist. But both train the brain in different and complementary ways. Read like this, however, in this light, the Ministry’s choice does not appear as a punishment, but rather as a signal: the future does not belong to those who separate knowledge, but to those who connect them. And that dreaded oral math question could prove, paradoxically, to be a small competitive advantage for tomorrow.
