Thanaweya Amma gets a facelift: Education Minister Mohamed Abdellatif yesterday unveiled a plan to restructure high school education and Thanaweya Amma by extension for the 2024-2025 academic year, which is set to begin on 21 September. The plan, which aims to reduce student workload while maintaining educational quality, was approved after public consultation with educational stakeholders over the past few weeks, the minister said.

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The revamped system in a nutshell: Only six subjects will count toward the final grades of first- and second-year students in high school, down from 10 and eight, respectively. Meanwhile, third-year students will only take five graded subjects instead of seven. Second foreign languages, geology, psychology, and religious studies will all become pass/fail subjects, meaning they won’t impact the final grade.

That’s not all: The new system also moves around certain subjects and combines some others.

** You can check out the subject breakdown in the Education Ministry statement here.

Alleviating the teacher shortage: Abdellatif also outlined a comprehensive strategy to tackle a critical teacher shortage across the country’s schools — the education system faces a deficit of 469.9k teachers. Here’s a rundown of the plan:

  • Continuing the presidential initiative to hire 30k teachers annually.
  • Activating a law to have teachers continue to work beyond retirement age.
  • Hiring 50k part-time teachers.

Also part of the plan: The ministry will extend the academic year from 23 to 31 weeks and add five minutes to each lesson.

Mitigating overcrowding: Abdellatif also laid out a multi-faceted approach to address classroom overcrowding:

  • Splitting school hours into shifts: Starting the next academic year, Thanaweya Amma will transition to evening classes, freeing up morning hours for middle schools. In turn, primary schools will utilize morning sessions previously allocated to middle schools. Schools will have the discretion to implement these changes based on their needs.
  • More school days: The school week will be extended from four to five days dedicated to academic learning, followed by a sixth day for extracurricular activities.
  • More classrooms: The General Authority for Educational Buildings has been tasked with conducting a survey of available spaces to identify potential spaces for classrooms. The ministry will also introduce a mobile classroom system that involves dedicated classrooms to specific activities.
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