CAIRO: The final grades for Thanaweya Amma were released Wednesday night, quelling anxiety by students and parents alike.
 
Students have been frantically calling hotlines, texting service numbers and using the internet to find out their grades.

Minister of Education Youssry El-Gamal, announced in a press conference Wednesday the names of this year’s top students. There are 37 top students this year; 23 girls and 17 boys, he said.

El-Gamal said that what distinguishes this year is that the top students hail from 16 different governorates around Egypt; with Cairo ranking first place with 13 students followed by Minya with four top students.

Of the 37 top students, 22 went to private schools while 15 went to public schools.

Several communication companies offered students a chance to conveniently find out their grades.

Popular news portal Masrawy.com set up a special page for Thanaweya Amma grades. Students were able to get their grades off the page for free if they were subscribers to Masrawy DSL or log in using the dial-up number 0777-0101. 

Another popular news portal, Onkosh.com, also set up a special page for the grades. Students could also obtain their grades from the Ministry of Education’s official website on their special ‘Natiga,’ or grades, page.

Hotlines were also set up, where students can dial and punch in their student ID number. They could also send their student ID number by SMS and get a reply with the grades.

In addition, mobile network operators Vodafone and Mobinil, were also offering special packages and offers for Thanaweya Amma students.

However, students still flocked to their schools Thursday morning to get their grades from a tangible grade sheet stamped by the Ministry of Education and signed by the school’s principle.

“I have to see it for myself, because despite all the technology, I still don’t trust it completely and there is always a part of me that hopes that there is some mistake and we will see different grades,” said Hanaa Ashraf, who scored  91 percent in her first year of Thanaweya Amma.

“We also come to school to compare our grades with our classmates and see if we scored above average or not,” said Maha Abdel Rahman, who scored 82 percent in her second year.

Strict security measures were taken outside schools where exams were taking place. No one was allowed inside the school except students and supervising teachers.

On average, students were relatively satisfied with this year’s exams, namely with notorious subjects such as Physics.

Despite tighter security, there were still reported cases of exam leakage.

State-owned newspapers also reported that the mechanics exam was mistranslated into English.

During the last 15 minutes of the exam, supervisors told students to stick to the exam’s Arabic version because its English translation was incorrect.