Algeria minister optimistic over Baccalaureate exams

Algerian education minister Abou Bekr Ben Bouzid said on Sunday the Baccalaureate is not a political degree but pedagogical, pointing out the successful reforms of his ministry.

•  
• Ben Bouzid did not give any estimates about the results of the Baccalaureate exams which kicked off today in Algeria. “The results will be the fruit of the reforms we started years ago,” he said.
• This comes along with failures in the educational reforms especially in terms of exams organisation. School books contain repeated errors although there are special committees in charge of reviewing them.
• The minister gave the go-ahead for the exams at Cheikh Fodil El Ouertelani high school in Algiers. He was accompanied by the prefect of Algiers. The same exams kicked off in the Algerian international high school in Paris.
• Ben Bouzid said all the questions were taken from the school programs and all the human and physical means were provided to make the success of the exams.
• A total of 444,541 candidates set for the exams. Of them, 113,845 are male while the number of independent candidates reached 181,184.