CAIRO, Jul 24 (Aswat Masriya) – Egypt's minister of education announced on Sunday a 75.7 per cent success rate in the final year exams of the general secondary certificate, called Thanaweya Amma.

The Thanaweya Amma exams are held in the final year of Egypt's secondary education stage before students are set to enroll in university.

Education Minister El-Helaly El-Sherbiny announced during a press conference on Sunday that the success rate went down by almost 4 per cent when compared to the previous year, which saw a 79.4 per cent success rate. 

According to the minister, girls had higher success rate than boys, standing at 76.7 percent and 74.3 per cent, respectively. 

None of the 560,583 students who took the Thanaweya Amma exams this year managed to receive a 100 per cent score, compared to six students who achieved perfect score during last year's exams.

The minister revealed that 58,150 students, accounting to 15.88 per cent of the total, received scores between 95 per cent to 100 per cent, while 18.07 per cent of the students who attended the nationwide exams received scores within the 90-95 per cent range.

Only 0.3 per cent of the students received scores between 50-55 per cent. 

This year, several Thanaweya Amma exams were leaked, mainly over social media, with a number of Facebook pages leaking the exams questions and answers prior or during the exams.

Cases of exam leaks prompted the ministry of education to cancel and reschedule a number of exams. The ministry's decision sparked a number of protests in several parts of the country, where hundreds of high school students called for the minister to resign.

Earlier in July, a Giza court sentenced a 19-year-old student to one year in prison and ordered him to pay an EGP 20,000 fine for running a Facebook page that leaked high school exam questions.