RAMALLAH (Ma’an) -- Around 88,000 Palestinian students took the first session of the General Secondary Certificate, or Tawjihi exams, in the West Bank and Gaza on Saturday.

A Palestinian Authority delegation visited test halls in Ramallah to check up on the process.

The delegation included Education Minister Lamis Al-Alami, the governor of Ramallah Layla Ghannam, speaker of the Palestinian president’s bureau Hussein al-Araj, mayors of Ramallah and al-Bireh along with several ministry officials.

The Tawjihi, administered every year for Palestinian students seeking the high school qualification, is required for those who wish to enter Palestinian universities. The score on the test determines which programs a would-be student can enter.

Some 593 test halls across the West Bank and Gaza had been set up to host students, Al-Alami said.

Al-Alami noted that for the second year, the ministry decided to hold Tawjihi tests in Romania as they study in schools which follow the Palestinian system in the country.

The minister added that of the 87,611 registered test takers, 52 percent were women. Of the total number of students, 50,158 were from the West Bank and 37,453 were from Gaza.