The Enem 2026 saw a historic surge in the participation of students from the public school system on the first day of exams, driven by the new automatic registration by Inep.
The first day of the Enem 2026 exam, held this Sunday (08), proceeded normally and without serious incidents. The results were released by the Minister of Education, Leonardo Barchini, during a press conference to detail the national progress of the assessment.
The main highlight of this edition was the significant increase in the presence of high‑school graduates from state and municipal schools. In total, the exam reached 1.9 million registrants from these institutions, marking a strategic shift in the profile of candidates.
The automatic registration strategy
The jump in enrollment is directly linked to the new directive adopted by Inep, which now registers students directly using the data supplied by education ministries. The measure eliminated traditional bureaucratic barriers that had hindered initial access to the selection process.
Even with pre‑registration, candidates still had to access the Participant Page to confirm essential details, such as the city chosen for the test and the foreign language option. The attendance rate for this specific group reached 65% on the first day of testing.
That was our goal: to bring more public school students to take the Enem. That’s why we provided all the facilitation so they could take their exams in their own school, in their own classroom, and have automatic registration.
Logistics close to home
Another key factor for engagement was logistical allocation. Over 85% of state‑school students took the tests in the same classrooms where they attend regular classes, reducing transportation costs and the fatigue of long commutes.
With this format, the Ministry of Education recorded an increase of approximately 250,000 enrollments in the exam. The data far exceed the figure recorded the previous year, when just over half of the public school graduates attended the testing sites.
The operational alignment is part of a broader plan by the department to link the national assessment to the Saeb, integrating the performance metrics of Brazil’s basic education from this assessment cycle onward.