RAMALLAH (Palestine Foundation Information Center) On Saturday morning, the General Secondary Education Examination (Tawjihi) began in the occupied West Bank, while students in the Gaza Strip were denied the opportunity to take it for the second consecutive year.
Around 46,000 students in the West Bank and about 2,000 students from Gaza who are currently outside of Palestine headed to exam halls.
For the second year in a row, students inside Gaza are barred from taking the exams due to the ongoing genocidal war waged by the Israeli occupation forces since October 7, 2023.
The students are distributed across academic tracks as follows: 28,000 in the literary stream, 14,000 in the scientific stream, and the rest in other branches.
This year, exams are being held in 512 exam halls, supervised by 16,000 teachers, school principals, and administrators, who are responsible for proctoring, managing the halls, and grading, in what is considered one of the most challenging years due to the conditions imposed by the occupation.
Two thousand Gaza students will take the exam this year, having managed to leave the Strip. These students are spread across 37 countries, seven of which have coordinated with official bodies to open official exam halls, enabling the Ministry of Education to administer the exams. In the remaining countries, exams will be held in Palestinian embassies and representative offices.
In occupied Jerusalem, the Ministry of Education announced the postponement of the exam’s start date to next Monday for around 3,600 students taking the exams in halls located inside the city (within the separation wall). However, exams in halls outside Jerusalem (beyond the wall) will proceed according to the pre-announced schedule and began this morning.
Students in the governorates of Jenin and Tulkarem are facing particularly harsh and exceptional conditions due to the ongoing assault since January.
The Ministry ensured that exam halls were located as far as possible from frequently targeted areas.
About 3,500 students in Tulkarem are sitting for the exam in 34 halls across various academic tracks. They were placed in halls near their residences to accommodate field conditions and ensure compliance with regulations and the safety of all parties, including proctors and hall supervisors.
Regarding students from Tulkarem and Nur Shams refugee camps who were forcibly displaced due to the aggression, they were integrated into schools in the city and surrounding towns during the school year. The local Directorate of Education has been monitoring their educational and psychological well-being, offering the necessary support to ease their integration and ensure good academic performance in a psychologically safe environment, away from the atmosphere of aggression.
In Jenin, about 3,034 students are taking the General Secondary Examination across 30 halls, including 43 students from the Jenin refugee camp who were forced to flee with their families due to the Israeli aggression.
According to the Ministry of Education, since the beginning of the Israeli assault on Gaza and the West Bank on October 7, 2023, 16,607 students have been martyred and 26,271 injured.
In Gaza alone, over 16,470 students have been killed and 25,374 injured since the beginning of the assault.
In the West Bank, 137 students were martyred, 897 were injured, and 754 were arrested.
Additionally, 914 teachers and administrative staff were killed, 4,363 were injured in both Gaza and the West Bank, and more than 196 were arrested in the West Bank.
