Judgement day
Reem Nafie interviews students and parents on the tension-filled day that Thanaweiya 'Amma exam results were announced
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It is either ear-to-ear smiles or hysterical crying on the day the Thanaweiya 'Amma results are announced -- after all, it is the most important day in Egyptian students' life
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Thanaweiya 'Amma (high school graduation certificate) examination time rates quite high among the most stressful periods of any Egyptian household. Months of preparation often involve intensive studying, private tutorials and little entertainment or socialising. Finally, when the exams themselves do start, the whole house mobilises to the student's aid. Parents coddle their children with favourite foods, trying to dispel the inevitable butterflies before the exams, and give them a ride to school.
When the standardised tests are finally over, there is momentary relief, then a lull in which students can only wait, dreading poor results. Mothers and fathers pray for their children, while the students themselves spend hours every night beseeching divine intervention.
When the big day finally does arrive, the nervous anticipation in households across Egypt is tangible. Last Thursday was the annual event that high school students refer to as "judgement day". The night before is sleepless for many students, as this judgement day is believed to imbue a certain predeterminism to the rest of their lives. If a student achieves high grades, she or he will be able to go to a decent university, find a good job, and become an upstanding citizen. The unspeakable possibility of failure lurking at the back of everyone's mind means a future of unemployment, or menial labor at best.
Anxious students and parents stood in school courtyards as they listened to the Thanaweiya 'Amma (secondary school certificate) results announced by microphone. Judging only by facial expressions and reactions, it was not hard to decipher who had done well, and who had fared poorly. While many, looking more relieved than anything else, were hugged and exuberantly congratulated, some crushed youths were castigated by their equally heartbroken parents.
The public ceremony this year was different than previous ones, though. Most students knew their grades beforehand and were only present at school to verify their authenticity. A new service, introduced by the Ministry of Education in cooperation with an Internet provider company, enabled students to find out their grades prior to the day of their announcement. By entering a personal identification number, each student was able to find out his or her grades two days early.
Not only students and their families but also administrators were pleased with the new option. "The Internet service really helped take the pressure off us," Naguiba Mahmoud, principal of the Nasr City Tagribiya School for Girls said. "In the previous years, we used to get phone calls a week before the results, but this year we got much fewer because the students checked the Internet site daily for any updates," Mahmoud explained.
Almost all of the students interviewed by Al-Ahram Weekly had used the new service, although traditional connections were still a factor as well. "I got 83 per cent and I'm happy with it. My parents got the results from someone they know in the ministry a few days ago and then I checked it on the Internet. I'm only here to make sure and to see my friends," Amira Saad said.
Saad's mother quickly added, "This year it's so much easier. Last year we couldn't find out at all, but now we are relaxed. Thanaweiya 'Amma is a very big thing in anyone's life. It's only natural that any student or parent be worried."
Saad and her mother went on to explain that the exams this year were tough but if a student studied regularly, passing the exams should not be a problem. "The most important thing is that the overall average grades aren't too high so that I can get into a decent university," Saad explained.
Just a few steps away, a girl was crying hysterically, blaming her failure on the difficulty of the examinations. "I got 45 per cent," Hannah Saber, a second secondary student sobbed. "My friends told me that they saw my results on the Internet and that I failed but I didn't believe them," Saber said. Afraid that she had done poorly, the disconsolate student had come without her parents. "What will I tell them?" she wailed.
While Saber resorted to distraught tears when she found out she had failed, other students, especially girls, sometimes take their failure much more seriously. According to an article published in the daily Al-Wafd, three girls separately committed suicide after they found out they had failed.
Salma Hanash, a counselor in a public school, said "Girls are always under more pressure than boys because parents expect them to study, stay at home and do as they are told," concluding "because girls have problems confronting their parents, they worry more about how they are perceived by them."
Societal and parental expectations could also be the reason why girls achieve higher grades than boys. According to statistics by the Ministry of Education, success rates prove that girls topped boys by an average of 17.9 percentage points this year. Also, the 10 top students in the country are all female.
"I would study for seven hours straight. I gained 10 kilogrammes the month before the exams," said Rania Ahmed, a student in second secondary that got 94 per cent. On the other hand, Zeitoun says that although he got 97 per cent, "I only studied for two hours a day and then I had to go out with my friends or I would get bored and not study at all."
Although students do vary widely in how extensively they prepared, none of the students denied that Thanaweiya 'Amma is a turning point in their lives. "The grades I get will stay with me forever and if I didn't do well this year, I wouldn't be able to go the university of my dreams," said Fatemah El-Said, a third- year secondary student who got 86 per cent.
El-Said explains that the day a student finds out their exam results will always be the most important day of their lives. "My mother always tells me that there is an old saying that goes 'On the examination day, a person is either rewarded or degraded'," El-Said says. "In my family, today is the second most important day after judgement day," she laughs.
