Corrections of this year’s high school (Thanaweya Amma) exams have officially concluded, and the final results will be announced on 6 August, head of the high school exams department and Deputy Education Minister Reda Hegazy said on Tuesday.
Hegazy said that this year’s general pass rate in high school exams has surpassed last year’s rate of 78 percent.
More than 650,000 Egyptian students took the high school final exams nationwide from 21 June till 21 July amid heightened precautionary measures to rein in the spread of the coronavirus.
Thanaweya Amma exams were postponed for two weeks over the coronavirus outbreak.
The Egyptian Doctors Syndicate, as well as many parents, had called for postponing the exams until the country saw a reduction in the virus infection rate. Others called for replacing the exams with an online research system adopted for other school grades.
The education minister, however, insisted that the major exams could not be postponed further, asserting that authorities were taking necessary precautions and offering students the option to delay the exams to the next school year.
Every year, more than 600,000 Thanaweya Amma students must take highly competitive exams in a number of subjects at the end of their final year of high school.
The grades determine what universities and faculties students may attend.
Egypt had suspended school and university classes since March as part of sweeping anti-coronavirus measures, and introduced a new research paper system as an alternative to the final exams in most other school grades.
