Deadline extended

Matura papers could not be uploaded

Shortly before the submission deadline for the pre-scientific papers (VWA) for the AHS Matura, there were technical problems with uploading. The portal was temporarily unavailable. The problems were resolved on Friday, but the Ministry of Education extended the deadline until Tuesday.

This affects Matura students in Vienna, Lower Austria and Vorarlberg. In the other federal states, the deadline ends later anyway due to the later semester break and different deadlines generally apply for final theses at vocational secondary schools (BHS).

Those who have already uploaded their work without success can now do so again, the Ministry of Education announced on Friday. The technical problems began on Thursday morning. A storage system in the computer center had failed.

Teachers run a plagiarism checking program on the work (symbolic image).(Bild: Andrey Popov - stock.adobe.com)

Work must also be presented
The pre-scientific paper is a compulsory part of the school-leaving examination at general secondary schools (AHS). It comprises up to 60,000 characters and must be printed out and submitted digitally by the end of the first school week of the second semester. The reason for uploading is sometimes that the plagiarism checking program runs on the work. The written work must then also be presented and discussed later in front of a committee.

Not a new problem
The VWA was introduced in 2015. Shortly afterwards, the system collapsed in the last week of submission due to overload. In response, server capacities were expanded at the time and a kind of "emergency variant" was introduced. In order to meet the deadline, the work can now also be submitted to the school via USB stick and uploaded later. Pupils choose the topic themselves in consultation with teachers.