Ministry of Education has removed a major obstacle facing high school students in the Kingdom. Many students have breathed a sigh of relief and are now more relaxed and confident about their grades and future after the ministry authorized the schools to conduct final examinations rather than holding the exams itself. “It will be more comfortable for teachers and students,” said Salem Al-Amri, member of the Students Activities Department in Ministry of Education. According to Al-Amri, this system will be easier for students to get high marks. “The Ministry of Education had made a sample of question papers and it will give them to all the schools,” he said. Each school is required to submit its sample papers to the ministry before the exams, said Al-Amri. Samir Al-Harthi, an English language teacher for third grade students, believes that the new system of exams will boost the students' hopes of getting high marks. “Earlier we used to get question papers from the ministry which caused pressure and tension on students,” Samir said. But the new system has some disadvantages too as some teachers may leave out some chapters from the curriculum believing them as unimportant, he said. Jabr Al-Homarni, a geography teacher at Suhail Secondary School in Jeddah, said the new system envisages that all exam sheets should be approved by supervisors who tour schools to check the validity of exams. Al-Homrani added that the ministry has formulated some regulations to help teachers prepare a good question paper. Abdul Monem Al-Qahtani, headmaster of a secondary school, said his teachers of the third grade submitted their exams two weeks ago in order to be revised by supervisors. Reem Marwan, a student, felt that the ministry's decision would help her a lot. “For so many years I was thinking about the high school examinations and was asking myself how could I pass it,” she said. “But this does not mean that our school is giving us special offers. I feel more comfortable when my teacher is the one who is preparing the question paper,” Reem added. __
