Scienze della Formazione Primaria Test: How Italy's Primary Teaching Degree Entrance Exam Works

Every year, on the same day, at every Italian university offering the program, thousands of candidates sit the same exam to enroll in Scienze della Formazione Primaria: the single-cycle master’s degree (LM-85 bis) that qualifies graduates to teach in preschool and primary school. It is not an exam decided by each individual university, but a single national test, with content set by a decree from Italy’s Ministry of University and Research (MUR).

A single ministerial test, not a TOLC

Online searches about this exam often get tangled up with TOLC, the family of tests run by CISIA (the Interuniversity Consortium for Integrated Access Systems). On the consortium’s official website, the TOLC-SU (Humanities Sciences) is described as required by some universities for admission to humanities-area degree programs; these include the three-year Scienze dell’Educazione degree (class L-19), a different program from the single-cycle master’s this Recap covers. No CISIA page mentions the TOLC-SU for the LM-85 bis degree.

The sources consulted for this Recap instead describe, for Primary Education, a written test held on a single national date, with different questions from university to university but the same structure everywhere, set by ministerial decree and run directly by each university through its own admission notice. This is the channel through which students enter the degree.

The structure of the exam, 2026/2027

Ministerial decree no. 931 of 3 July 2026 sets the format of the exam for the 2026/2027 academic year: 80 multiple-choice questions, four options per question, to be completed in 150 minutes. That year’s exam took place on Friday, 11 September 2026, from 11:00 to 13:30. The questions are split as follows:

Section	Questions (2026/2027)
Language competence and logical reasoning	40
Literary, historical and social culture	20
Mathematical-scientific culture	20
Total	80

Entering the merit ranking at the university where the exam was taken requires a minimum score of 55 points out of 80. A separate decree from the one on the exam format, ministerial decree no. 992 of 3 August 2026, sets how many places each university offers: the two measures regulate different things, one the running of the exam, the other the number of places.

Comparing 2025/2026 and 2026/2027

The exam’s structure is not new: for 2025/2026 too, the test consisted of 80 questions in 150 minutes, held on 12 September 2025, with the same three-section breakdown. What changes most from one year to the next is the number of places on offer:

Element	2025/2026	2026/2027
Total places	11,822	11,937
Places, Italy/EU	11,605	11,732
Places, non-EU candidates abroad	217	205
Exam questions	80	80
Time allowed	150 minutes	150 minutes

Practical example: a candidate registering for the 2026/2027 exam finds 115 more places than the previous edition (11,937 versus 11,822), but the exam format they will face, 80 questions in 150 minutes across the same three sections, is the same one already seen in 2025/2026: it is worth practicing with past papers from both editions, since the exam format stays the same from one year to the next.

Entry requirements and the degree path

Registering for the exam only requires a five-year upper-secondary school diploma, or an equivalent qualification earned abroad: any type of high school qualifies, not only the liceo delle scienze umane (humanities-focused high school). Once admitted, the degree lasts five years and includes 30 exams overall and 600 hours of school placement, starting in the second year at accredited preschool and primary institutions. Those who also want to qualify for special-needs teaching must complete, after graduation, an additional 60-credit specialization course: it is not included in the base five-year path.

Someone who already holds a degree in Scienze dell’Educazione (L-19) may, depending on how the university recognizes prior credits, be admitted to a later year of the Primary Education degree: this remains a case-by-case situation to check with the individual university, not a general exemption from the entrance test. For a comparison with the rules of other Italian admission tests, see the Recap on university entrance exams in Italy, and readers also preparing for a health-area test can check the Recap on Italy’s health professions admission test.

The merit ranking and tie-break criteria

Clearing the minimum score of 55/80 does not by itself guarantee a place: admission depends on a candidate’s position in the university’s merit ranking, based on their score, relative to the places available at that university. In case of a tied score, the ranking applies tie-break criteria in order: first the score in language competence, then the score in literary culture, then the score in mathematical-scientific culture, then the diploma grade, and finally the candidate’s age.

How to prepare

The exam’s sections cover different areas: command of the Italian language and text analysis for the language section, literary genres and historical chronology for the literary-historical section, number systems, algebra, probability and evolutionary biology for the scientific section. Timed practice tests remain the most direct way to get used to the exam’s pace, 80 questions in 150 minutes; when sorting through sources found online while preparing, the method described in the Recap on evaluating credible sources for research can also help distinguish a ministerial decree from a generic page that only repeats some of its figures.