On 6 March newly appointed Minister of Education Tarek Shawki announced the revised schedule of Thanaweya Amma — 12th grade — exams following a request by students and parents. The exams will start on 4 June and end 24 June instead of 22 June. Make-up exams are scheduled to start on 12 August. Shawki approved the changes for 2017 after meeting with parents of students. Thanaweya Amma exams will coincide this year with the holy month of Ramadan which is to begin the last week of May. The change came after students objected to English and French exam dates. Parents asked the minister to extend the exam schedule to 24 June instead of 22 June to allow students to revise their subjects. They also asked to keep social studies and statistics to the last day. Reda Hegazi, head of General Education at the ministry, said the Ministry of Education's aim is to improve the country's education and to make it a national target. According to Hegazi, the minister, along with heads of sectors at the Education Ministry, decided to apply a new system for Thanaweya Amma exams to avoid the leakage of exam answers. “Exam questions will be merged with the booklet in which students answer the questions. All will be in one booklet,” Hegazi said. Last year, several exam questions were leaked online through a Facebook page dubbed “Chao Ming”. Students protested after the Education Ministry decided they must sit for new exams. Nearly 500,000 students take Thanaweya Amma exams every year. “The education minister refused to extend Thanaweya Amma exams further due to financial and security concerns. Postponing the exams will cost the ministry a lot of money needed for securing the exams as well as personnel monitoring students while sitting for the exam,” Hegazi said. Aliyaa Al-Gamili, a parent of a Thanaweya Amma student who attended the meeting, said parents submitted seven suggestions to reschedule the Thanaweya Amma. “The minister agreed on only one which extends the exams for two more days,” Al-Gamili said. According to Al-Gamili, the schedule is convenient for students sitting for the exams. “Two or three days will precede each scientific subject which should be enough for revision. Exams will be easy, straightforward and clear,” she added. “The minister called on parents and students not to worry about the new booklet system,” Hegazi said. “Parents and students will realise after the exams the efficiency of the new system in ending exam leakage as well as reducing cheating during the exams.” Al-Gamili said that in the revised Thanaweya Amma schedule, on the first day students will sit for Arabic and religion. On 6 June there will be second language and economy. On 8 June students will take first foreign language. 11 June will be physics and history, to be followed on 13 June by Algebra and solid geometry. On 15 June the schedule has differentiation and integration, biology and geography, on 18 June chemistry and psychology, 20 June dynamics, and 22 June geology, statics and philosophy. On the last day of the exams, 24 June, students will go for social studies and statistics. Thanaweya Amma students must take highly competitive exams in a number of subjects at the end of their final year of school. The marks scored determine which universities and faculties students may attend, if any. In 2015, a presidential decree stated those who leak exam scores will face a year in prison as well as fines ranging from LE20,000 to LE50,000.
