Jordan was right to reform Tawjihi. The old system exerted immense pressure on students and their families, and graduate unemployment and mismatch of skills demonstrated that keeping the status quo was definitely not an option.

 

The real challenge, however, is whether the reform in place is sufficient to match the university capacity, labour market needs, and the future profession changes.

 

The first cohort of students demonstrates the warning.

 

According to the data of 2026, among 127,956 students of the academic track, 45,116 chose the health field, whereas only 11,695 went for engineering, while 16,347 selected the science and technology branch. In other words, four out of five students opted for health rather than engineering.

 

Engineering is just an example of an issue; the problem could be found in other fields as well. Preferences of the students are important, yet not enough to develop human-resource planning at the national level.

 

This problem becomes obvious if these numbers are related to the university capacity. Only 640 students will be accepted to medical studies, and 320 students to dentistry, while higher-education authorities reported vacancy in some engineering programs.

 

There is no anything wrong about Jordanian youth dreaming about health-related careers; however, it would not be right to suggest students choosing engineering or any other major just because the university has the capacity. A problem happens when the school system develops some expectations, which are opposite to university capacity and future employment.

 

Jordan invested many years in the development of laboratories, facilities, specialized teachers, and infrastructure in engineering, science, agriculture, and other spheres. Unused capacity means underutilized national investment. However, large numbers of students fighting for the limited seats in popular fields could cause disappointment, leaving the country, and more pressure on families.

 

The field of medicine demonstrates how the bottleneck phenomenon may carry over into higher education admissions. According to estimates made by the President of the Jordan Medical Association in April 2026, about 23,000 students are enrolled in medicine studies in Jordan and some 20,000 Jordanians are enrolled in medicine programs outside of Jordan. It is also worth mentioning that about 4,454 medical graduates in 2025 compete for merely 1,040 residency positions.

 

It is thus clear that the new Tawjihi should be seen as a component of a whole pipeline starting from choice of school and ending up with university admission, graduation and employment opportunities.

 

The second problem concerns flexibility.

 

According to the old system, students of the scientific profile had access to a broad range of disciplines within universities. The new field structure means that there is a closer link between choices made at sixteen or seventeen and possible future education.

 

Specialization is good, but it should not become a barrier.

 

The country could gradually transition to eligibility for university studies based more on prerequisites and knowledge than field titles. Engineering would have appropriate mathematics and physics requirements, Medicine would have biology and chemistry and enough quantitative preparation. For those who want to change their plans, there would be some clearly defined bridging courses, not whole disciplines which would be virtually inaccessible.

 

The principle should be clear – universities should assess the subjects and knowledge of a student, not just his or her field.

 

This is especially important for mathematics in the health program. The decision to make mathematics a common subject in Grade 11 is good, but health education should retain enough of its quantitative aspect.

 

Tomorrow’s doctors, pharmacists and health workers will deal with artificial intelligence, medical imaging, robotic surgeries, genomics, decision-support systems and increasingly advanced medical technology. They do not need to be engineers, but they need to feel comfortable with mathematics and quantitative analysis.

 

However, the broader problem is employment.

 

Vocational and technical education is, naturally enough, part of the Jordanian response to unemployment. Technical education works, however, only insofar as it responds to real economic demand.

 

Allowing additional universities to establish courses of study with catchy names like artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, renewable energy and advanced manufacturing risks simply replicating the problem in different language.

 

There are relevant international precedents.

 

Like Jordan, Tunisia faces a problem of graduate unemployment and an inadequate connection between university education and the needs of the private sector. As part of its Tertiary Education for Employability project, the country has established over 40 education programs directly tied to industry, involving the collaboration of employers in course design, internships and work-based learning. Over 22,000 students have already benefited from them.

 

Perhaps most notably, some joint programs with companies in the fields of mechanics, avionics and automotive achieved an almost 100 per cent employment rate among their graduates.

 

Tunisia hasn’t solved the problem of unemployment, but it has illustrated an important principle: programs developed together with identifiable employers achieve significantly better employment results than education programs designed independently.

 

Morocco provides a complementary precedent. In the context of more closely tying vocational training to industrial policies, Morocco focused in particular on automotive manufacturing and aeronautics, creating specialized training institutes in conjunction with investment in factories and the development of industrial ecosystems.

 

The result has been impressive. By 2024, the Moroccan industrial sector employed over one million workers, while the automotive sector alone provided over 250,000 direct jobs.

 

Morocco still faces the problem of youth unemployment, and that illustrates yet another important principle: education policy can’t solve the unemployment problem if there is no job creation through economic policy.

 

A third relevant precedent can be found in Malaysia. Having created a big system of technical and vocational education, it managed to improve its national coordination, involve industry, apprenticeships and work-based learning. According to its Ministry of Higher Education, the employability of TVET graduates reached 95.9 per cent, and current priorities include semiconductors, artificial intelligence, green technology and electric vehicles.

 

The lesson for Jordan, therefore, should not merely be “get more technical education.” It should be: do not design the program and then look for jobs for its graduates. First figure out the jobs, the industries and the investment opportunity, and build the education around them.

 

This will require better national coordination.

 

Any university before being allowed to create or enlarge a technical program should have some indication of labor market need, of credible industrial partners, of laboratories and of workplace training.

 

Not all universities should teach every new emerging specialty. Jordan could set up centers of excellence, in which universities concentrate on those specialties in which they already have good teaching staff, infrastructure and industrial connections.

 

Employment rate should be included as one indicator in program evaluation. Those programs that have repeatedly proven to produce low employability rates should be downsized, modified, or, if necessary, stopped.

 

Jordan would also need a National Education-to-Employment Observatory to gather data from all involved parties, including education and higher education authorities, accreditation agencies, universities, professional associations and business community.

 

It would be publishing each year data about university capacities, number of students graduating from it, employment rates, estimates of sectoral need and cases of shortage and saturation. Students and their parents should get this information before choosing a Tawjihi specialty, rather than finding out about it when applying to university after two years.

 

Such information is meant to inform the choice of students, not dictate it.

 

The goal should not be to kill the new Tawjihi, nor to go back automatically to the old system. There are good aspects in the reform which can continue to develop. However, the next stage of this reform should be going from fields to pathways – pathways with bridges between them, common foundation, clear information and link to university capacities and employment.

 

Successful Tawjihi reform should not make a sixteen-year-old person to choose his career. It should help him build one – and help Jordan to build the human capital that its economy needs.