Iraq declares last school year no-fail after Cabinet backs third exam round

BAGHDAD — Iraq’s Education Ministry on Sunday declared the 2025-2026 academic year a “no-fail year” for all school stages, days after the Cabinet approved a third exam round for final-stage students.

The decision covers general academic and vocational schools and fine arts institutes. The ministry’s General Directorate of Evaluation and Examinations said it rests on approval from the ministry’s Opinion Authority, which met online on Oct. 22.

The designation means a year in which a student fails is not counted against them as a failed year. Under Iraq’s education regulations, students who fail the same grade twice can lose their place in regular daytime school and be required to move to evening classes, and 2025-2026 will not count toward that limit. The ministry has not detailed how the exemption will be applied.

At the same session, the Opinion Authority approved a third exam round for students in the sixth grade of primary school, third intermediate and sixth preparatory, and referred it to the Cabinet. The Cabinet approved it on Tuesday on the proposal of Education Minister Abdul Karim Abtan, the minister’s media office said.

Rules the ministry issued on Saturday open the round to final-grade students who sat the second and special rounds and failed them, for a fee of 25,000 dinars per subject (about $16 at the official rate). No dates have been announced. Sixth preparatory exams are Iraq’s national school-leaving exams and the main basis for admission to public universities.

The 2025-2026 year was overshadowed by the war that began with U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran on Feb. 28. In March the ministry denied reports that schools would switch to online learning after a meeting at the Prime Minister’s Office on the security situation.

In July it proposed letting students who missed the second round sit it for a fee of 50,000 dinars (about $33 at the time), citing students’ exceptional circumstances, in a plan that needed Cabinet approval. A special examination round ran from Sept. 26 to Oct. 10, overlapping the new school year, whose start the ministry moved three times in three weeks, most recently to Oct. 4.

The decisions apply to schools run by the federal ministry. The Kurdistan Region runs its own education system, and its schools opened on Sept. 20.