The first full Grade 12 cohort of the new Certificate of Nile International Secondary Education (CNISE) in Egypt will sit their final exams in 2017, ready for tertiary entry in 2017/18.

Individual subjects are awarded a letter grade, A*-E, where E represents the lowest passing grade.

The CNISE is a 3-year bilingual English-Arabic upper secondary school qualification currently taught in five purpose-built schools across Egypt.

In a UK NARIC benchmarking review just published, two of the CNISE subjects, Biology and Mathematics at levels 2 (Grade 11) and 3 (Grade 12) were evaluated, the L2 being found comparable to the GCE AS Level standard and the L3 comparable to the GCE A Level standard.

UK NARIC reviews of further subjects will be undertaken in 2017 and updates provided in future editions of NARIC News.

The CNISE was developed by Cambridge International Examinations in collaboration with the Education Development Fund in Egypt, and recognised by the national Ministry of Education.

The qualification aims to combine Egyptian and international curriculum standards and international educational practice. In doing so, the qualification has been designed to prepare students for undergraduate study or employment both nationally and globally.

The CNISE has subjects at three levels (Levels 1, 2 and 3) as follows in the table below, with more subjects currently in development: