SULAIMANI (ESTA) — Graduated high school students on Thursday continued to protest in the Kurdistan Region against results announced by the ministry of higher education and scientific research via the Zankoline system, used to place the applicants in degree programs at public universities and institutes.
Angry students temporary blocked the main road between Kirkuk and Erbil on Thursday, calling on the ministry of higher education and scientific research to increase the number of seats in the universities.
The ministry uses the Zankoline system that allows graduated high school students to apply for degree programs at the Region’s public universities and institutes.
Several students say they have scored above 95 on their final exams, but were not accepted at the engineering and medical departments.
“My average score is 95.3 and applied for all the engineering and medical departments, but none of them accepted me,” an angry student said during the protests in Erbil.
“They even told me that there were no free-of-charge seats at the scientific department. Their speech is not true when they say there are 4,000 seats available,” she added. “I went to the presidency and they told me there were no available seats”.
The ministry of higher education and scientific research said on Monday that 43,277 students out of 52,532 were accepted by the Zankoline system to study at the public universities and institutes.
Students continued to protest in Sulaimani and Garmian administration.
