School Education in Jordan

The structure

Schooling runs through kindergarten, ten years of basic education (grades 1–10) and two years of secondary education (grades 11–12). Basic education is described as free and compulsory. Secondary education is streamed, and ends with the General Secondary Education Certificate Examination — the Tawjihi.

Curricula

Public schools follow the national curriculum set by the Ministry of Education, taught in Arabic with English as a core subject. Private and international schools may teach a foreign curriculum — American, British, IB, French or a national variant — under approval and inspection. Many Jordanian private schools run a bilingual or dual-curriculum model, teaching both the national programme and an international one.

School types you will encounter

Public schools, private national-curriculum schools, private international schools, bilingual schools, schools attached to international organisations, UNRWA schools serving Palestinian refugee communities, military and security-forces schools, and specialised schools including those with learning-support provision and schools for students with disabilities.

Choosing a school

The decision is rarely about a global ‘best school’. It is about fit: curriculum and language, whether the qualification is recognised where the family is heading next, class size, learning-support capacity, transport reality in Amman traffic, and total annual cost. Families who plan to leave Jordan should start from the qualification the next country will require.

The Tawjihi

The Tawjihi is the national school-leaving examination taken at the end of grade 12. Its stream and result profile determine eligibility and competitiveness for higher-education programmes in Jordan, and it is the benchmark against which the Unified Admission system allocates public-university places for Jordanian students.

What this portal does not do

This portal does not publish school fee figures that have not been confirmed from the school’s own current schedule, and does not publish league tables. Where a school is listed, the profile states what was verifiable and what was not.