Abu Dhabi students did very well at the Ministry of Education's (MoE) annual Grade 12 examination this year despite lack of representation of the emirate in the top-10 list for the science and literary streams.

'We missed by a very small fraction, being on the top 10 list, only by about .001 and .005 per cent. We haven’t failed,'

Dr Mugheer Khamis Al Khaili, Director-General of the Abu Dhabi Education Council (Adec) said on Sunday. His response came following the MoE announcement last week of the Grade 12 exam toppers from the public and private (following the MoE curriculum) schools, in which only one student was from the emirate.

Shaima Abdel Mahmoud, an Egyptian, from Al Safwa Private School in Al Ain ranked fourth at 99.5 per cent for the Literary section. Despite this, the Adec was pleased with the overall results of the examination, with average student results increasing by 2.3 per cent annually for the past three years. High-achieving students have also risen significantly.

'We've done much better this year, with 65 students scoring 99 per cent and above compared to 35 students last year. This translates to 71 per cent increase,' Dr Al Khaili pointed out.

Those achieving 95 per cent and above have also gone up by 30 per cent, from 851 in 2010-2011 to 1,109 this year, while those with over 90 per cent have increased by 18 per cent, reaching 2,801 compared to 2,365 last year. He noted that the Adec's 'stringent' continuous assessment, which makes up 40 per cent of the students’ total grade (60 per cent from MoE exams), may have affected student’s grades from reaching the top 10. 'Our student toppers have complained that our continuous assessment is much more difficult than that of the other emirates' he said.