CAIRO: Ninety-three percent of a random sample has passed the thanawiya amma (the national secondary school certificate) math exam, an employee at the exam grading-room in the Ministry of Education told Daily News Egypt on condition of anonymity. In response to the thousands of complaints about the math exam, Minister of Education Youssry El-Gamal said last Wednesday the ministry would grade a random sample and take the necessary action according to the results. "We reassure all parents and students that the ministry is working for the benefit of the students, anything we decide will be to their advantage, said Essam Sedek, an employee at the minister's office. Students left the math exam on Tuesday June 10 frantic and in tears complaining about the difficulty of the questions. Even teachers from the Ministry of Education who were proctoring the exam had similar views. "The exam is extremely difficult; even when we left them to answer collectively they couldn't do it. It was unbelievable, said an exam proctor who preferred to remain anonymous. Although this year the ministry has introduced a hotline for students to submit any complaints they have regarding their exams, the website Thanwya.com has become "the place for discussing any topic related to the high school certificate. "The problem is that there is absolutely no communication between the ministry and the people. The hotline they promoted was supposed to be bridge between them and it turned out to be imaginary, said Ashraf El Sayed, developer of Thanwya.com. El Sayed developed Thanwya.com in 2003 and now it has over half a million members and 126,000 visitors daily. There are study notes available for students on the website; they can also submit questions they have for teachers, complaints about different issues, or comments on related topics, all at no cost. There have been some comments by university students and teachers claiming that the questions on the math exam are part of freshmen engineering courses. "It's impossible to answer this exam in four hours, let alone two hours, one comment stated. "The action which the ministry has to take is to interrogate the person who put these questions and review the upcoming exams in case they have questions with the same level of difficulty, said El Sayed. State-owned Al-Gomhouria newspaper reported that some exams have been stolen and are currently being sold. "Many people have asked for those exams on our website after [television presenter] Amr Adib mentioned it on his show [Al-Qahera Al-Youm]. It seems like people want them and are willingly to pay for them, said Sayed. "If we get any clues on the stolen exams we will immediately report to the police, he added. Students took their English exam yesterday and were satisfied with the questions; no complaints were filed on Thanwya.com. "It was a good exam, anyone who studied would have been able to answer all questions fairly well, said May El Badawy, a student in the second year of thanawiya amma.
