Egyptian Parliament Rejects Amendments to Education Law

The Senate in Egypt has rejected in principle a government bill amending certain provisions of Education Law No. 129/1981 on secondary education final year exams (Thanaweya Amma)(higher school diploma exams).

The bill seeks to amend the general secondary school system to become the three-year system, by taking into account the scores of the first and second years of the three-year secondary education and the total is calculated on the basis of the grades obtained by the student at the end of each of the three academic years.

The draft law allows the student to perform more than one attempt in the end-of-year exam for each academic year, and it also allows for high school examinations to be performed electronically through the tablet system, and under this law the student will have the right to enter the exam more than once, provided that the first time is only without fees.

The draft law allows the return of the improvement system in some subjects in return for payment of fees that do not exceed five thousand pounds for one article.

The bill, however, did not specify the amount of fees to pay in case of requesting to retake an exam more than once.