The Tigray Education Bureau has announced plans to administer its own regional school-leaving examinations following a logistical dispute with the Ministry of Education, prompting federal authorities to declare any such independent tests legally invalid. This escalation highlights a growing constitutional and administrative rift over national educational standards and regional autonomy.
Tigray Education Bureau Head Dr. Kiros Gu’esh announced that the region will independently test 29,755 affected students who missed scheduled assessments. Dr. Kiros stated the decision followed the federal government’s failure to transport national exam papers by the July 8 deadline. Calling the delay political, he added that Tigray would determine its own university admission criteria.
Conversely, an official from the Federal Educational Assessment and Examination Services countered that regional states possess absolutely no legal mandate to issue national exams. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official stressed that the federal agency holds exclusive jurisdiction. They warned that independent regional results would remain unrecognized, ultimately jeopardizing the students’ academic futures.
The federal official further clarified that the national paper-based examinations are officially scheduled to be administered later this month, specifically from July 29 to July 31. The source noted that previous online testing sessions in the Tigray region faced significant local interference, forcing federal supervisors to operate under intense pressure.
Although the Tigray regional cabinet dispatched an official letter seeking a timely resolution, they report receiving no formal response from the Ministry of Education. Consequently, thousands of regional students remain stranded, caught directly in an unresolved deadlock between Tigray’s autonomous regional initiatives and the federal government’s centralized academic mandates.