Education Minister: Postponing high school exams to June 21 ‘final decision’

CAIRO – 19 May 2020: Minister of Education Tareq Shawky has assured that the decision recently announced to postpone the final exams of high school grades is “final” and that it came in response to all families' opinions regarding holding the exams amid COVID-19 infection fears, adding that students’ health is a priority for the state.

Minister Shawky explained that the ministry will apply all the precautionary measures and will sanitize exam rooms.

The Ministry of Education announced that high school final exams, known in Arabic as “Thanaweya Amma,” will begin on June 21 instead of June 7, after the completion of the disinfection procedures. The ministry further said that those who are not able to take the exam on time due to fears of COVID-19, they can request from the ministry to postpone to the next year.

The ministry further announced providing masks to students before entering the exam rooms.

The number of rooms where exams take place will be increased, where each room will include a maximum of 14 students to maintain a safe distance between students.

All exams will begin as of 10 a.m. and all students' temperature will be measured and will enter in queues provided that the distance between students is estimated at 2 meters. All theoretical exams for technical diplomas will take place from July 25 to August 13.

A total of 653,000 high school students and 777,000 students of technical diplomas will be supervised by 500,000 teachers and will be taking exams at 150,000 exam rooms.