1.829281-3695404929
Radwa Hassan Al Taweel, who scored 99 per cent in Arts stream from AQS school in Abu Dhabi, receives gifts from her mother Wazna Salama. Ahmed Kutty/Gulf News Image Credit: Radwa Hassan Al Taweel, who scored 99 per cent in Arts stream from AQS school in Abu Dhabi, receives

Dubai: There are not many surprises in this year's Grade 12 exam results for UAE public schools compared with last year's results, education officials said on Monday.

"The pass percentage this year for Science stream students is 84.3 per cent, marginally lower than last year's," said Ahmad Saeed Al Drei, head of the examination section at the Ministry of Education. "For the Arts stream, the pass percentage is 69.6 per cent, which is a slight improvement over last year."

A total of 34,751 students appeared for the Grade 12 exams, held earlier this month. This includes 19,804 public school pupils, 6,621 pupils of private schools which follow the ministry of education curriculum, 3,250 students of adult study centres and 5,076 home-schooled pupils.

Girls shine

Among girls, 4,798 in the Science stream and 7,172 in the Arts stream passed the exams, while the pass numbers among boys was 3,910 in the Science and 5,265 in the Arts streams.

On Sunday, only the top-ten scorers were announced. The results came out in full on Monday. Students can check their marks online on the ministry of education's website. The results have been sent to individual students by e-mail.

Emirati Alia Majid Ebrahim Al Mutawa of Sakina Bint Al Hussain Secondary School in Dubai, and Syrian Mohammad Naseeh Al Siraj of the Mohammad Bin Hamad Al Sharqi Boys School in Fujairah scored the highest in the country in the Science stream with 99.9 per cent.

Monallah Ahmad Tawfiq, Egyptian, topped in the Arts stream with 99.8 per cent. She attends the Rashid Al Saleh Private School in Dubai.

"The hard work of the students, teachers, school principals and the educational zones reflect in this year's results," said Humaid Mohammad Obaid Al Qutami, Minister of Education, adding that he was very happy with the results.

"Improvement is particularly visible in adult education centres," Al Drei said.

Last year, for the first time the public schools followed a three-semester system rather than the two-semester one they were following earlier. Also, 40 per cent of marks were based on continuous assessment, as compared to 20 per cent in the previous years.

"The change to the three-semester system and putting more importance on continuous assessments resulted in the improvements," said Fawzia Hassan, Assistant Undersecretary for Educational Operations at the ministry.

Individual reports for schools are being prepared to identify the areas that need improvement, she added.

Rashed Al Saleh Private school bagged the top two Art stream top scores this year.