The numbers from the first round of the state final exam in Štip reopen an old, uncomfortable subject. A full 57 students from Štip's secondary schools failed the state exam, and of those, a full 53 failed English - a subject that today is practically a requirement for any further study or job.

The number isn't dramatic in itself, but English as the main stumbling block says more than it seems. In an age when kids grow up surrounded by English through the internet, games, music and social media, failing that particular subject isn't a sign that the pupils are incapable - it's a sign that something in the way it's taught isn't working. If a teenager who watches English-language content every day fails the exam, the problem is hardly just with them.

The question rarely asked is about the quality of the teaching, not the ability of the students. Do English classes really prepare kids for real use of the language, or only for memorising grammar rules that are forgotten by the next lesson? The final exam is a mirror of the entire education system, and the mirror in Štip these days shows that something is creaking.

For those 57 students, the second round is a fresh chance - and it's good that it exists. But the education system can't treat every failure as merely an individual's problem. When dozens of pupils fail the same subject in the same town, that's a signal that demands attention from above, not just a resit patched up below. Otherwise next year we'll be reading the same numbers, with the same shaking of heads and not a single change.