Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati and caretaker Education Minister Abbas Halabi check official exam situation in Sour, June 29, 2024. (Credit: NNA)
The first day of Lebanon's school-leaving baccalaureate examinations got underway Saturday as planned by the Education Ministry, without significant incident, the state-run National News Agency reported. Students sat down to write their exams across the country, including in the south, where daily cross-border exchanges of fire between Hezbollah and Israel have been ongoing since October.
A slight delay was recorded in the arrival of exam sheets in some examination centers, notably in the south and in Arsal in the Bekaa, according to L'Orient Today's correspondents in these areas.
Interviewed about the reasons for this delays by the Lebanese LBCI TV channel, caretaker Education Minister Abbas Halabi explained they related to a "mistake" in the chemistry exam, that was noticed "at 4 a.m., during a verification."
"The teachers had to correct it," he explained, assuring that students would benefit from "extra time" to finish the paper due to the delays.
Baccalaureate students sat exams in two subjects Saturday: civic education and life sciences.
In Saida, in South Lebanon, an atmosphere of calm prevailed asthe exams began in various schools at around 9 a.m., following a ministry decision to start the exams simultaneously across all governorates.
Regional official in the Education Ministry Ahmad Saleh told L'Orient Today that the security situation is "stable" and that after the delay experienced in the morning, things are going "normally." According to him, 5,300 exam-sitting students are divided between 29 centers in Saida, Sour and Jezzine districts.
Saleh also emphasized to our publication the "exceptional nature" of this year's exams in the south, likening them to an "act of educational resistance."
Salah added that the absentee rate was 3 percent, with 154 students failing to turn up. He said that, among the measures taken in the south, "three additional examination centers have been set up in Zahrani" and that each center in the entire region includes an "emergency room."
"We have also set up a database of pupils, invigilators and teachers for each center, so that messages can be sent in the event of a security incident and they can be transferred to safer locations if necessary. Supervisors and teaching staff have also been made aware of the need to ensure the "psychological comfort" of young people.
During a tour in South Lebanon, caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati and Minister Halabi visited exam centers in Sour, according to our correspondent. The first stop was at Sour Girls' Public High School, where Mikati and Halabi reviewed the progress of the exams and inquired with students about the exams' conduct and the questions' nature.
In this context, Amani Shaaban, head of the Education Department in the South Educational Region, inspected the conduct of the exams at al-Islah Mixed Intermediate Public School in Saida.
Earlier, caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati visited the South Litani Sector Command headquarters at the Benoit Barakat barracks in Sour. "When the official exams for technical education started, we received threats via social media about bombing exam centers. Investigations by the Intelligence Directorate indicated that possibly disadvantaged students are behind these threats," he said.
"This same issue repeats itself nationwide, where psychological warfare intensifies," Mikati added, thanking the military's "courage and sacrifices."
In the Bekaa — a region that has also been sporadically bombed by Israel — the exams also happened without any incidents, under strict security measures, according to L'Orient Today's local correspondent.
The Lebanese Army patrolled around the various exam centers.
In the Akkar Governorate, in Northern Lebanon, students also received copies with more than an hour of delay "due to technical and logistical errors," as described by one of the concerned officials contacted by our local correspondent. This delay caused confusion among the students but also the professors in charge of supervising the test.
Additional reporting by Sarah Abdallah, Mountasser Abdallah and Michel Hallak.
