‘Ministry exams for sixth, ninth graders not like Tawjihi’

AMMAN — The unified Education Ministry exams planned for sixth and ninth graders will not be similar to the General Secondary Certificate Examination (Tawjihi), the spokesperson said Monday.

Around 170,000 sixth graders and 150,000 ninth graders will be tested in maths, Arabic and English, while sixth grade students will also be tested in science. The exams start on June 3.

“These ministry exams will not be different from those in schools and will be held using the same mechanism,” Education Ministry Spokesperson Walid Jallad highlighted.

Schools will be responsible for giving students 60 per cent of their grades based on their own tests and 40 per cent will be based on the ministry’s exams.

In addition, students’ names will not appear on exam papers during the correction process to ensure credibility.

Under the new regulations, introduced earlier this month, students who fail will retake the exams during the summer in accordance with standard regulations, according to the ministry.

In previous remarks, Education Minister Mohammad Thneibat noted that the move seeks to end the differences between schools, achieve equality among students and unveil their “true” academic level.

The ministry will write the exam questions “in a scientific way” to identify students’ weaknesses and strengths, Jallad explained.

“The exams will not entail extra costs for students and schools,” he stressed, noting that the papers will be corrected by the teachers of the same school.

The spokesperson also told The Jordan Times that the ministry will distribute exam papers to its directorates across the Kingdom before being sent to schools; then, after students sit for the exams, the papers will return to the ministry for analysis.

Also on Monday, Nasser Nawasrah, head of the joint Jordan Teachers Association (JTA) and Education Ministry committee, said teachers have the right to ask for financial compensation for correcting and monitoring the exams.

In a JTA statement to The Jordan Times, Nawasrah stressed that these exams will not be treated as ordinary school exams as per the 2010 regulations issued in accordance with Article 29 of the 1994 Education Ministry Law and its amendments.

He added that correctors deserve JD0.6 for each hour spent correcting ministry exams, while monitoring teachers receive JD5.5 per hour, as stipulated in the 2010 regulations.

The JTA statement was issued in response to questions the association has received on the rights of teachers working with these exams.