Parents of Lebanese students abroad protest outside the French Embassy in Beirut in May. (Credit: NNA)
BEIRUT — The Association of Parents of Lebanese Students Abroad asked President Michel Aoun in a statement “to embrace students and provide them with the hope of steadfastness abroad, by signing the student dollar law and expedite its publication in the official gazette.”
Here’s what we know:
• The statement pointed out that Parliament, on December 7, 2021, approved the urgent amendment to the student dollar law, (no. 193) and that it has not been signed by President Aoun yet.
• The student dollar law stipulates that commercial banks must allow account holders to transfer up to $10,000 at the official rate of LL1,515 to the US dollar to students who left Lebanon to study abroad before 2020. Before being amended, the law only allowed these transfers during the 2020-21 academic year. The amendment to this law, once signed, would make it applicable to all future academic years, as long as students left before 2020.
• “Almost a month after its approval in the House of Representatives, the people were finally surprised … about the President’s failure to sign the amended law, which carries an urgent nature,” the statement read.