RAMALLAH, July 19, 2012 (WAFA) – A total of 62.2% of the high school students who sat for the general matriculation exam, known as tawjihi, had a passing grade, according to a Ministry of Education official who announced on Thursday the result of this year’s exams.

Deputy Minister of Education Jihad Zakarne said 53,450 high school students out of a total of 85,910 have passed the exams in the science and art streams in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, where the results were announced simultaneously.

A tawjihi certificate allows students to apply for higher education at Palestinian, Arab or international universities. However, most Palestinian universities demand an overall grade average of A+ to be admitted to one of their most popular colleges, such as engineering, law or medicine.

The student with the highest grade received in the exams scored 99.8%.

Prison advocacy groups said some 1500 prisoners in Israeli jails were not allowed to sit for the exams.

Israel stopped allowing prisoners to sit for the tawjihi exam or to take higher education courses through correspondence as a punishment since the abduction of the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit by Hamas gunmen in 2006.

The Ministry of Education is in the process of modifying the tawjihi exams for the next academic year in a step to modernize it.

M.S.