Feature: Egypt's high school exams nightmare for students

Anxiety, constant tension, sleepless nights, fear, horrible pressure from the family -- these are common features that engulf most of the Egyptian students during high school exams, or Thanaweya Amma as it is commonly referred to in the middle eastern country.

From June 5 till 28, some 560,000 Egyptian students have to pass these exams which lead to the Egyptian General Secondary Education Certificate and serve as the entrance examination for Egyptian public universities.

"Such exams determine my future and I have to get high marks so I could join a good public university," Ahmed Ibrahim, a science/mathematics student told Xinhua as he reviewed his answers of the physics exam with his classmates near Maadi military secondary school in Maadi district of Cairo.

The 17-year-old boy has been living under huge pressure for almost one year because of the high school examinations.

"I cannot stand this pressure anymore; I want this nightmare to finish. I have gone through tough pressure from my family, my teachers and even some of my friends and relatives. Everyone wants me to get the highest marks so as to be enrolled at a prestigious college," the boy said as he waited near the school's gate for his classmates.

At the end of the final year of secondary school, students sit for comprehensive examinations for each of the five core subjects they took that year.

The content of the exams and their relative weight in scoring depends on the students' curricular concentration, either literature, science, or science/mathematics. These scores are turned into a composite and ranked within each track.

Thanaweya Amma can also be taken by private school students in national curriculum schools accredited by the Ministry of Education. Additionally, private language schools can teach students the national curriculum but with certain core subjects taught in languages other than Arabic.

Unlike many countries, high school exams in Egypt are considered a nightmare for both students and parents.

Ibrahim explained that high school program is a curse that hits the family as well as the students, adding the conditions are almost similar at every Egyptian home that has a high school student.

"For my parents, it is a psychological and financial burden. It has been almost a must to find some private tutors for all subjects for that students and this costs the family heaps of money," he said.

"When the program starts," he said, "a state of emergency is declared at home and the list of the allowed and the forbidden is set."

Ibrahim pointed out the Thanaweya Amma are already difficult, adding that the family pressure makes them even harder.

"They want to see me frightened of the exams all the time. I'm always urged to study harder because my grades will decide my future, I have always been told this sentence since I was a little child," the boy complained.

The family pressure is undoubtedly destructive as Abdel Fattah Mohammed, another high school art branch student, believes. However, he thinks that the educational system in Egypt is the reason behind the family pressure.

"The government requires students to score high marks, sometimes over 97 percent to get into a decent university, and families are helping the government by pressuring us in all the ways possible, which make the students fall into depression and sometimes lead them to fail," Mohammed told Xinhua as he just finished an exam and planned to leave the school.

Many education experts have complained that Egypt's education system is in need of renovation. However, a few changes happened in the recent decade.

The teenager believes that system was made to decrease the number of students joining the country's 22 free public universities.

"That's why the government requires high grades to join free universities. Instead of building new universities, they just allow students with highest marks to join free universities, while students with lower marks can join expensive private universities," Mohammed grumbled.

Another problem, the boy said, is that the curriculum and the exams are very difficult and students can barely answer all of the questions.

"People are not alike, my way of thinking is different from my brother's, so the exams should not be very difficult as if all high school students are geniuses," he added. Endit