The Israeli bagrut: units, required subjects and choosing megamot

Updated

The בגרות (bagrut), the Israeli matriculation certificate, works differently from a high school diploma in the US or A-levels in the UK, and the difference is not cosmetic. There is no single grade at the end of one year. Instead, a student builds up a count of units over the three years of high school, subject by subject, each at a level the student chooses. Two students in the same class can leave with two bagrut certificates of very different value, and neither of them has repeated a year.

This is the most important point for a parent to understand early. The choices that decide the value of the certificate happen in kita י and kita י״א (tenth and eleventh grade; Years 11 and 12), and they are hard to undo.

The unit, the יחידה

Each subject is taken at a certain number of units, יחידות (yehidot). A unit stands for a load of curriculum and exam, not a grade. The higher the level at which a student takes a subject, the more it weighs in the record, and the more doors it opens afterwards.

If you know the AP system, think of the number of units as the level of the course, not the score on it.

The threshold usually given for a full certificate is 21 units. But that number says almost nothing: it is a floor, and many students go well past it. What matters for what comes next is not reaching 21. It is what those units are made of.

The required subjects

The required core depends on the school stream. In the ממלכתי (mamlakhti) stream, the general public stream, it adds up to 16 units:

The ממלכתי־דתי (mamlakhti-dati) stream, the religious public stream, requires 20, with Tanakh at 3 units plus the תורה שבעל פה (Oral Torah). Arab schools require 17, with Arabic. On top of this core, every stream requires at least one subject at 5 units, and English at 5 units does not count for that rule.

In math and English, 3 units is the lowest level, not the normal one. A student can take each of these two subjects at 3, 4 or 5 units, and from kita י the classes are split by level. Placement depends on the grades of the previous years and on an exam at the start of the year. A student can move up, and can also move down.

The reform that changed the weight of subjects

Since the 2024-2025 school year, the ministry has been rolling out the תוכנית הבגרויות הגמישה, the flexible bagrut program, in the humanities and social sciences: the Tanakh, history, civics, literature, the מחשבת ישראל (Jewish thought), and the heritage subjects, the מורשות (moreshot).

Under the old system, the grade in these subjects came 70% from the external exam and 30% from the school's own assessment. Under the new one, the external exam counts for only 35%. Two supervised projects count for another 35%: the teacher grades them, and the ministry checks about one in five. The school's assessment makes up the remaining 30%. For a one-unit subject, the split is 50% for the exam, 20% for one project and 30% for the school.

The timetable has moved, too. The program was due to become required, for at least one subject, for the students starting kita י in 2025-2026. In December 2025, the minister left the choice between the old and the new system to the schools for one more year. Ask your child's high school which system it applies, subject by subject.

Math and English are not part of the reform: both keep their national external exam.

This is the consequence nobody will point out to you. When a larger part of the grade is decided inside the school, the grade is harder to compare from one high school to another. The subjects that stay fully comparable are the ones that keep their whole external exam: math and English. The unit level in those two subjects is still the clearest signal in a student's record, and the reform has not weakened it.

For an oleh child, this turns a comforting idea upside down. Parents often hear "he'll catch up in history and Tanakh, you can learn those by heart." That may be true for the grade. It says nothing about the level in math and English, and those still show most clearly in the record.

The מגמות, and how students really choose them

The מגמות (megamot) are the high school tracks, a little like choosing A-level subjects. Students usually choose one or two when they start kita י״א, and sometimes as early as kita י, depending on the school and the track. Each one counts for 5 units, and the tracks are how a student goes beyond the required core.

The common advice, "one track you enjoy, one track that's useful," is not bad, but it hides the real test. A track decides three things at once:

  1. the value of the certificate, through the number and level of units it adds;
  2. the army placement, because some units recruit for specific profiles;
  3. university admission, because some degrees require prerequisites that only a track gives.

The science tracks, physics, chemistry, biology and above all computer science, open all three doors widest at the same time. A modern language other than Hebrew is a real asset for some army placements. It is also an opportunity families often miss: French, for example, is a מגמה, so ask which languages your child's school offers as a track.

Two warnings, which cost a lot when families learn them late.

A student can lose a track. If the results do not follow, the teacher can advise the student to leave it. The student must then take another track and catch up on it from the beginning, a year behind the rest of the class.

A science track depends on the math level. A student cannot take physics at 5 units with math at 3 units. So the math level chosen in kita י decides, indirectly, which tracks are still open in kita י״א. This is the door that closes most quietly, and earliest.

What to decide, and when

The real timetable is tighter than the official one.

In kita ט (ninth grade; Year 10), the student is placed in a math level for kita י. This placement is based on the grades of kita ט and kita ח (eighth grade; Year 9). So access to 5-unit math is decided in eighth and ninth grade, two to three years before anyone talks about the bagrut.

In kita י, the math and English levels settle, and the student takes the first units.

In kita י״א, the tracks become a firm commitment.

For a child who arrived from another country, this hides a specific trap. Their math grade in kita ח or kita ט often reflects their Hebrew, not their math: they know the concept, but not the word for it. Yet that grade decides their level in kita י, so their tracks, so the universities open to them. Nobody looks at that record again later.

That is why the math vocabulary has to catch up in eighth and ninth grade, not in tenth. The curriculum for each grade, in Hebrew, is here.

Where to check

The Ministry of Education publishes the flexible bagrut program, the yearly circulars and the lists of tracks on its teaching portal. At your child's school, the רכז הבגרות (rakaz habagrut), the bagrut coordinator, holds the real timetable of that high school, and knows which system it applies.