Grade 12 public school pupils honoured

Nearly 140 Grade 12 public school pupils enrolled under the Ministry of Education (MoE) Curriculum were on Monday honoured for scoring 95 per cent and higher. The ceremony in the capital saw Shaikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister of the UAE and Minister of Presidential Affairs, recognise high-achieving pupils. The results for Grade 12 MoE exams were announced last week. This year, 1,109 Grade 12 pupils in private and public schools across the UAE scored 95 per cent or above, with 65 achieving 99 per cent or higher. Officials from the Abu Dhabi Education Council said on Sunday that pupils tend to perform better in subjects such as, English, Arabic and Physics. However, Shaikha Al Jneibi, a 17-year-old Emirati citizen, who was the only pupil to score above 95 per cent from Al Hunain School in Abu Dhabi, had different ideas.“I believe subjects such as Chemistry and Maths are much easier than English, Arabic and Physics,” Shaikha said. She added that Physics is, however, more demanding than other subjects. Shaikha also said that the stress of exams in June prevented her from reading storybooks as much as she likes to. Her school did provide her with a strong curriculum to excel in all subjects, she added. “In my opinion, hard workers will always give their best when it comes to studying, regardless of which institution or curriculum they are enrolled in,” Shaikha’s mother added. Farah Ghanim, 18, an Iraqi pupil from Qatr Al Nada School in Abu Dhabi who scored 99.7 per cent in the exams, said that the main obstacle she faced during the exams was time constraints. “We used to have one exam after the other so there was never enough time to finish studying,” she noted. Farah also made an observation similar to Shaikha’s. “Surfing the internet is one of my favourite things to do but I barely had time for it because I had to regularly take care of my studies,” Ghanim said. When asked why the number of high-coring female pupils was greater the number of the males, Mohammad Yahya, 17, an Emirati from Sharjah who graduated from Al Mahmoud Secondary School with a score of 98.6 per cent, said that girls in general tend to devote all their time only to studying. “Girls don’t engage in extra curricular activities as much as boys do,” he felt. Mohammad Yahya plans to pursue his bachelor’s degree at the Petroleum Institute in Abu Dhabi. All three pupils noted that their parents’ guidance and continuous support were the key to their success. from gulfnews.com