Some 29,000 out of 32,000 eligible students have so far applied to public universities through the Unified Admissions List, while the Higher Education Ministry has exerted efforts to increase the number of students accepted in medical programmes, an official said on Thursday.

Students, who have obtained a minimum of 65 per cent or its equivalent on the Tawjihi examination, have until Monday midnight to apply via the online unified admissions system, according to Higher Education Minister Adel Tweisi, who added he expected all eligible students to apply.

The results will be announced between September 10 and 15, he added.

He noted that the Higher Education Council (HEC) on Thursday decided to accept some 31,920 students in the fields of medicine, dentistry, pharmacy and doctor of pharmacy, with a minimum of 77 seats for each of the four majors at universities that offer these disciplines.

Tweisi explained that these majors are highly demanded in the job market.

He also expected admission averages to increase compared to last year, as students have generally scored higher in this summer’s General Secondary Education Certificate Examination (Tawjihi) session.

Meanwhile, the minister said he expected a drop in admissions via the parallel programme, whereby students with scores in the Tawjihi that are too low to qualify them to study specific subjects at public universities can instead enrol in these disciplines by paying higher tuition fees.

He said the HEC directed universities to commit to the allowed rate of admissions via the parallel programme, which is 30 per cent of seats occupied through the unified admission system.

He said only two of the 10 public universities have violated that rule, as parallel programme admissions in one of them reached 160 per cent.

Violating universities will gradually decrease the number of students accepted through the parallel programme in a manner that does not disrupt their budgets, the minister added.

The Central Bank of Jordan on Thursday announced that a total of 31,674 university admission applications were submitted via the e-FAWATEERcom service by Thursday morning.

Some 29,000 applications were submitted via the Jordan Post offices across the country, while some 2,000 applications were submitted via online and mobile portals, and around 1,000 applications were sent to system via e-FAWATEERcom booths.

The value of transactions via e-FAWATEERcom exceeded JD475,000, according to an official statement.