368 thousand students participate in the high school exams in Syria
Today, Saturday, June 6, the exams for the General Secondary School Certificate with its scientific and literary branches, the Sharia Secondary School, and the Vocational Secondary School with its industrial, commercial and women's branches, began in various Syrian governorates, amid organizational and security measures that the Ministry of Education said aim to ensure the conduct of the exam process in a stable and safe atmosphere.
According to official figures quoted by SANA, the number of applicants for the secondary certificate exams in its various branches reached 368,596 male and female students, distributed among 1570 exam centers in all Syrian governorates.
Students of the scientific branch constitute the largest percentage of applicants, as the number of students reached 215,258 male and female students, while 127,343 students applied for the exams of the literary branch. The number of applicants for the vocational secondary school exams reached 23,267 students, in addition to 2,728 students in the Sharia secondary school.
Security measures to transfer questions
As part of the preparations accompanying the start of the exams, units of the Internal Security Forces and the police, in coordination with the Ministries of Education and Interior, secured the transfer of exam questions to accredited centers in the Syrian governorates.
The transfer process came hours before the start of the General Secondary and Vocational Secondary Certificate exams in its various branches, as part of measures aimed at maintaining the confidentiality of the questions and ensuring that they reach the exam centers on time.
The Director of Education in Damascus, Refah Al-Bushi Al-Dabbagh, said in a statement to the state-run SANA news agency that the process of transferring questions from the printing center to the exam centers for the general, Sharia and vocational secondary certificates was carried out on a regular basis, stressing that the centers received the questions in accordance with the approved procedures that ensure that their confidentiality is maintained until the start of the exam.
She added that the concerned authorities followed up the distribution processes directly to ensure that there is no delay or malfunction that may affect the conduct of the exams.
The Ministry of Interior supports education measures
For his part, the director of education in the Damascus countryside, Fadi Nuzhat, explained that the transfer of questions is done in accordance with strict organizational and security arrangements, where the questions are placed in designated boxes and transmitted under the supervision of internal security units and the police, and in coordination with the Ministry of Education.
He pointed out that these measures aim to ensure that the questions reach the exam centers with the highest degree of security and confidentiality, while adhering to the dates set for the start of the exams in various regions.
These steps come in light of the Ministry of Education's continued implementation of its plan for the management of the General Examinations, which includes securing exam centers, the requirements of the educational process, and supervising the implementation of the exam instructions.
Delay in the arrival of questions to the centers in Damascus
The delay in the arrival of the questions at a number of exam centers in the heart of Damascus, according to local sources, turned a quarter of an hour of waiting into a real moment of confusion that students and their families experienced before the start of the exam, and the scene seemed confusing: ready halls, observers in their places, and students staring at the clocks while the envelopes that are supposed to be opened at the same moment do not arrive at all the centers.
Syrian News learned from private sources that the centers that received questions late tried to absorb the tension by giving students an extra quarter of an hour, but most of the students considered this compensation "insufficient", stressing that the first minutes of any exam are the most sensitive, and that the anxiety they experienced cannot be compensated for by additional time.
The delay affected prominent exam centers in the capital, including the Ibn al-Shater School in Mezzeh and the Jaber Bin Hayyan School, which raised widespread questions among residents about the reason for this defect in one of the most important exam stations in the country and in exam centers not more than a few kilometers away from the Ministry of Education.
So far, the Ministry of Education has not issued any comment or clarification on the reasons for the delay, leaving the field open for speculation, as students continue to talk about a confused start to exams that were supposed to be more disciplined and organized.
Hijri militants block the roads of Sweida students
According to local sources, the checkpoints of the so-called "National Guard" in Sweida belonging to Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri caused the overwhelming majority of the governorate's students to be deprived of access to the secondary and basic certificate exam centers for the 2026 cycle, after the factions blocked the international road leading to the Damascus countryside and stopped the movement of buses carrying students and educational staff, despite all the arrangements announced by the governorate and the Ministry of Education to transport and shelter them for free in the capital.
The sources said that the decision of the Ministry of Education to move the exams to Damascus came as a result of the absence of the educational and security environment inside Sweida, but the local factions treated the decision as a conflict file, imposing their control over the road through checkpoints, most notably the um al-Zaytoun checkpoint, preventing the passage of buses, and forcing students to return to their homes. Some residents spoke of large sums of money that were asked of them to allow passage, while most families were unable to pay them.
UN mediation fails
The sources added that the media platforms affiliated with the factions played a role in intimidating the residents by broadcasting stories about the "unsafe road", despite the confirmation of government agencies that the road is fully secured by the deployment of road security and civil defense elements, and the entry of a UN delegation on the mediation line did not succeed in changing the position on the ground of the factions, which insisted on preventing movement towards Damascus.
According to local estimates, what happened led to the deprivation of more than 13,000 students from Sweida from their right to take their national exams, in a precedent described by educational sources as "the most serious politicization of the education file in the governorate in decades."