Roughly 3,500 Jordanian high school students have successfully combined the health track with the science and technology track, according to the Ministry of Education’s admissions director, marking an early test of the country’s multi-track academic system for Tawjihi students.
The Rollout and Flexibility of Academic Tracks
The Tawjihi academic track system was established to give students wider course options by allowing them to merge multiple study fields. During his appearance on the Sawt Al-Mamlaka
program, Al-Khatib explained that the system allowed students to merge a number of fields.
The current academic framework comprises six distinct tracks: the health track, the engineering track, the science and technology track, the business track, the languages and social sciences track, and the Sharia and rights track. Beyond the health and science combinations, the reporting noted that some students also merged the engineering and science and technology fields, or paired the business field with the languages and social sciences field. Officials observed that a subset of students even integrated three separate fields, demonstrating a level of flexibility in the system that grants students broader options in choosing their paths and specializations.
University Admission Pathways for Health Track Students
For students navigating the unified admissions process, the health track opens doors to more than 151 bachelor’s degree specialties. These options encompass medicine, dentistry, doctor of pharmacy, and pharmacy, alongside supportive medical fields, biology, and chemistry specialties, in addition to similar specialties in the intermediate diploma.
Availability varies across institutions: medicine is available to health track students in 6 universities, dentistry in 4 universities, doctor of pharmacy in 2 universities, and pharmacy in 5 universities. Al-Khatib stressed that limiting a student’s choices to only medicine and dentistry does not reflect all available options. He invited health track students to broaden their options when filling out the unified admission application and to rank specializations and universities according to their desires, pointing out that the ten official universities are open to students for competition.
Capacity, Projections, and Future Changes to the System
Official figures for the upcoming academic year announced by Al-Khatib set total capacity at 41,844 seats for bachelor’s programs and 10,173 seats for the intermediate diploma. Furthermore, 34 new bachelor’s specialties and 35 new intermediate diploma specialties were introduced. Al-Khatib expected a decline in competitive admission averages in engineering specializations, pointing to the existence of vacancies in some engineering specializations during previous years and expecting the fields system to reflect on acceptance rates there.
At the same time, the system is scheduled to undergo further modifications. Al-Khatib indicated that the system of fields will become 4 fields instead of 6 starting next year, as part of the adjustments made by the Ministry of Education to increase options and flexibility for students.
Intermediate Diploma Options and Academic Bridging
The intermediate diploma constitutes an available option for students, with Al-Khatib clarifying that the comprehensive exam was canceled and that bridging has become available at cumulative averages of 68% and 70% in some specializations. He added that the universities law published in the Official Gazette included a text recognizing the intermediate diploma certificate for the purposes of bridging, appointment, and practicing the profession, stating that coordination is underway with the Ministry of Health regarding the implementation mechanism.
Evaluation of the Pilot Phase and Supplementary Exams
Al-Khatib stated that the experience of the fields system has now succeeded by 80 to 85%, noting that the final evaluation of the experiment will be after the appearance of the unified admission results. In the interim, a health track student can advance to the mathematics subject in the supplementary session, and in the event of success, can obtain the science and technology field. He clarified that this possibility is available to academic track students and does not include the vocational track.
He affirmed that he does not expect the application of the fields system to have a negative impact on the results of unified admission or to lead to a decrease in the numbers of accepted students, explaining that the numbers of accepted students are ultimately linked to the absorptive capacity and the numbers of students distributed over them.
