After the nine years of primary education, students receive Intermediate School Certificate and attend secondary school for three years. In addition to normal secondary schools in which to prepare for university, technical secondary schools, vocational training centers, a veterinary training school, a Health Manpower Training Institute, and several agricultural secondary schools are available. There are also Islamic schools, and private schools. In normal secondary schools, students take a common curriculum during their first year, after that, students are given choice either the scientific or literary track. At the end of third year, students take examinations, and an 'Al Thanawiya'(General Secondary Education Certificate) is given to students who pass the examination. In the school year 1999-2000 was 439,129 boys and 324,493 girls' enrolled in secondary education.
The secondary school system is still in need of proper management. Only 21% of the schools have more than 180 students (13% of rural and 47% of urban schools), which is the minimum number of students required to have a viable secondary school offering the two mandatory academic tracks. Also only 27% of the schools offered two parallel streams in grades 11 and 12. The provision of education by private sector is also not a viable option due to excessive regulatory barriers that limit private financing. Then the deployment of teachers is also inefficient. There are some schools with excess of some teachers of particular subjects, while there may be shortage of teachers of the same subjects in other schools. The education system also lacks formal professional teaching development program. In addition, the various ministries have no coordination in terms of teacher's development. Each year about 15,000 students with teaching degrees graduate from universities. Out of those 6000-7000 teachers are hired mostly in basic education.
The gross enrolment rate for secondary education in Yemen is 45.6 percent in 2005.The regional average of Middle East and North African countries is 73.4 percent. Girls fare worse than boys particularly in rural areas. In 2006, the secondary school net attendance ratio NAR was 60.4% for male 55.7% for female, with a 17 percentage point difference between the urban and rural NARs for males and 25.9 percentage point difference for females. In July 2007 the Cabinet approved a National General Secondary Education Strategy(NGSES) that aimed to provide high quality secondary education for transition to tertiary education and the labor market in an equitable and cost effective manner. This strategy will work towards reducing both,gender and geographic inequity in the attainment of secondary education.