Egypt's Ministry of Education will hold a trial home-based exam for third-grade high school students, locally known as Thanaweya Amma, in April, nearly two months ahead of the first-ever online, non-standardised test module set for the last stage of school education in July.

Education Minister Tarek Shawki said in an online video message on Thursday that the schedule of July's exams will be announced by the end of February as per the newly announced module.

In September, Egypt announced the abolition of the country's well-established and decades-old system of high school final exams as of the end of the 2019/2020 academic year.

The exams, which determine university prospects based on grades obtained, will no longer be unified and will be taken and evaluated electronically at schools, without any human intervention, as per the new module.

The exam will also be based on multiple-choice questions, with students allowed to know their results as soon as they are finished.

Egyptian students are set to start the second semester by the end of February, after an extended break due to the coronavirus pandemic, with fourth to eighth graders to take a collective exam that includes all main subjects as an alternative to the adjourned first semester exams. Students before grade four do not receive exams.

The exams for the two semesters for ninth to 12th graders, the last school stage, will be held at the end of the educational year.

School attendance for the second semester will be optional for students after submitting a formal approval from their parents, a step that was pushed by President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi in response to parents' concerns over the pandemic.