Overview
Tawjihi, formally the General Secondary Education Certificate Examination, is Palestine's national school-leaving examination for Grade 12 students, administered by the Palestinian Ministry of Education and Higher Education (MoEHE). It is sat by students completing the academic or vocational track of secondary school in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Jerusalem, and by Palestinian students living abroad. Passing it earns the Certificate of General Secondary Education, which Palestinian universities and colleges use as the main basis for admission.
Since October 2023, the war in Gaza has severely disrupted how the exam is run there. For the 2023–2024 and 2024–2025 cycles, most of Gaza's school and exam-hall buildings were damaged or destroyed, and the Ministry moved the Gaza sitting fully online, with students sitting the exam on phones, laptops and tablets from displacement shelters, tents and public wifi spots. The Ministry has reported that well over a thousand students who were expected to sit the exam were killed during the war. West Bank and Jerusalem sittings have generally continued in person, with individual subjects occasionally moved online for security reasons.
Note
The Ministry of Education and Higher Education's own site (moe.edu.ps) could not be reached directly from this research environment. The facts below are drawn from Palestinian and international news coverage and education-sector reference sources that report on the Ministry's published rules and results; confirm current-year specifics on the official site before relying on them.
Who can apply
Tawjihi is sat by students completing Grade 12 of Palestinian secondary school — public, private, or home-schooled through private study — including Palestinian students living abroad and, since the shift to online sittings, students in Gaza. After ten years of compulsory basic education, students choose between an academic track and a vocational track at Grade 11:
Academic track — split into streams, chiefly Scientific ('ilmi) and Literary (adabi), alongside smaller Sharia, business/entrepreneurship, and professional-competency streams. For the 2026 cohort, Ministry enrolment figures put roughly 55,750 students in the literary stream and 25,350 in the scientific stream, with the rest spread across the smaller streams.
Vocational track — covers fields such as industrial, agricultural, commercial, and hotel/tourism trades. Vocational-track students sit the separate Technical Tawjihi exams, which lead to employment or further study at community colleges and, in some fields, universities, rather than the general academic certificate.
Exam pattern
Every Tawjihi subject is marked out of 100. The Scientific and Literary streams share a set of core subjects and are then examined in additional stream-specific subjects.
| Stream | Core subjects (all students in the stream) | Stream-specific subjects |
|---|---|---|
| Scientific | Arabic language, English language, Islamic education, National/civic education | Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology (combinations vary by specialization, e.g. medical/health vs. engineering) |
| Literary | Arabic language, English language, Islamic education, National/civic education | Arabic literature, History, Geography, plus electives such as Economics or Sociology |
| Sharia | Arabic language, English language, National/civic education | Islamic jurisprudence and Quranic-studies subjects |
| Vocational (Technical Tawjihi) | Arabic language, National/civic education | Trade-specific technical and practical subjects for the chosen branch (industrial, agricultural, commercial, hotel/tourism) |
The exact subject list and combinations are set and revised by the Ministry's curriculum directorate most years, so this table is the general shape rather than a fixed list — confirm the current year's subject list for a specific stream on the Ministry's own site.
Marking and results
A candidate needs a mark of at least 51 out of 100 in each examined subject; failing a single subject withholds the Certificate of General Secondary Education until that subject is passed in a later sitting. Results are expressed as an overall percentage average across the examined subjects.
That overall average decides what a graduate can study next:
| Destination | Minimum Tawjihi average |
|---|---|
| Traditional (public/private) universities | about 65% |
| Open University | about 55% |
| Community colleges | about 50% |
For 2026, the Ministry reported an overall pass rate of 74% for the West Bank, Jerusalem and students abroad — the highest in three years — while Gaza's pass rate was held back for separate announcement after the second session, which the Ministry attributed to technical reasons tied to the online exam infrastructure.
Important dates
For the 2026 cycle:
First (main) session — 20 June to 8 July 2026, for the main cohort of Grade 12 students in the West Bank, Jerusalem and Gaza.
Results (first session) — announced 24 July 2026, for the West Bank, Jerusalem and students abroad; Gaza's result was deferred to after the second session.
Second session — 15 to 27 August 2026, for retakes and candidates completing outstanding subjects.
Around 91,000 students were registered for the 2026 main session, including about 36,900 in Gaza, where every exam was administered electronically because almost all school and exam-hall buildings there had been damaged or destroyed. In the 2024–2025 cycle, Gaza's results were not announced until 14 October 2025 — months after the West Bank's — showing how much the war has disrupted the usual results timeline. Dates shift from year to year and by stream; confirm the current year's schedule on the Ministry's site before planning around it.
How to apply
Regular students register through their school during the Ministry's announced registration window; the school submits the registration on the student's behalf.
Private-study candidates (not enrolled at a school), and those repeating or improving a subject, register directly with their local Directorate of Education.
Palestinian students living abroad register through the nearest Palestinian diplomatic mission or an arrangement the Ministry announces for overseas candidates.
Students in Gaza are assigned an exam centre or online sitting arrangement by the Ministry, given the territory's damaged school infrastructure.
After registering, candidates should confirm their exam centre (or online sitting details) and subject schedule directly with their school or Directorate of Education.
Exact registration windows, required documents, and any fee are set and published by the Ministry each year; this file does not state a fee because no confirmed current figure could be sourced.
After the exam
Once results are published, graduates apply to Palestinian higher-education institutions using their Tawjihi average and stream. Roughly 65% is the usual minimum to apply to traditional public and private universities, about 55% for the Open University, and about 50% for community colleges, though individual faculties and competitive programmes (medicine, engineering, pharmacy) set higher cutoffs within those minimums. The stream a student sat generally decides which faculties are open to them: Scientific-stream graduates can generally apply to science, medical and engineering faculties, while Literary- and Sharia-stream graduates apply to faculties such as arts, law, Sharia, humanities, and the administrative/economic sciences. Vocational-track (Technical Tawjihi) graduates generally move into employment or community-college study in their trade, with access to university study limited to specific related fields.
Preparation tips
Decide on an academic or vocational track, and the specific stream within it, as early as possible — it fixes which subjects are examined and which university faculties later become open.
Treat every subject as pass/fail on its own: because failing even one subject withholds the certificate, spread revision across all examined subjects rather than concentrating only on the strongest ones.
Work through the Ministry's past Tawjihi papers for each subject; question formats and styles tend to repeat from year to year.
If sitting in Gaza, confirm the current online exam arrangements and any device or connectivity needs well ahead of the exam window, since these have changed from year to year during the war.
If a competitive university programme is the goal, check that programme's recent admission cutoff rather than assuming the general minimum average is enough.
FAQs
What streams can I choose for Tawjihi in Palestine?
The academic track splits mainly into Scientific ('ilmi) and Literary (adabi) streams, with smaller Sharia, business/entrepreneurship, and professional-competency streams. A separate vocational track covers industrial, agricultural, commercial, and hotel/tourism trades, and leads to the Technical Tawjihi rather than the general certificate.
What mark do I need to pass each Tawjihi subject?
Each subject is marked out of 100, and a candidate needs at least 51 to pass it. Failing even one subject withholds the Certificate of General Secondary Education until that subject is resat in a later session.
Has the war in Gaza changed how Tawjihi is run there?
Yes. Since the 2023–2024 cycle, Gaza's exam has been administered fully online because most school and exam-hall buildings there were damaged or destroyed, and Gaza's results have sometimes been announced months after the West Bank's. Check the Ministry's current-year announcements for how the Gaza sitting is being run before relying on a past year's arrangement.
What Tawjihi average do I need for university in Palestine?
Roughly 65% is the usual minimum to apply to traditional universities, about 55% for the Open University, and about 50% for community colleges — though competitive programmes such as medicine or engineering set much higher cutoffs within those minimums. Confirm the current year's thresholds with the specific institution.