12th grade students will be given 40-day study period before exams: education official

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Twelfth-grade students in the Kurdistan Region will be given a 40 day study period ahead of their exams, the head of the Parliamentary Committee for Education, Higher Education, and Scientific Research has said.

“The Ministry of Education’s High School Committee responded positively to us and agreed to give a 40 day pre-exam study period to 12th grade students,” read a Monday statement from Abdulsalam Dolamari.

The statement also added that there will be two exams per week during the examination period, another demand of students who gathered outside the education directorate building in Sulaimani last week. 

Grade 12 students gathered in front of the directorate’s building last week, calling for various reforms, including their pre-exam study period to be reverted to 40 days, after it was reduced to 28.

“What we want is that the 40 days that was reduced to 28 be changed back to 40, and the amount of subject included in exams to be reduced,” Dabin Ibrahim, a protesting student told Rudaw’s Horvan Rafaat on Wednesday.

Security forces fired into the sky as students attempted to break into the building, several students reported.

Sulaimani’s deputy education director Omar Mohammed told Rudaw that students “attacked” the building with stones, and one was injured trying to break a window.

Sulaimani’s Director of Education Dlshad Omar said on Wednesday they were unable to extend the reading period for students, but had begun working on other demands.

Exam arrangements have also caused a headache for students in federal Iraq. 

Students and their parents expressed their anger last week after students were just given four days notice before exams which had previously postponed due to coronavirus restrictions.