Education Minister, Rima Karameh, in May 2025 at the ministry in Beirut, during an interview with L'Orient-Le Jour. (Credit: Anne-Marie El-Hage / L'Orient Today)
BEIRUT — The Cabinet on Thursday canceled the Lebanese baccalaureate exams, whose various sessions were initially set to begin on June 29, July 27, and Sept. 7, 2026, against a backdrop of uncertainty over the fragile "cease-fire" that has been in place since last weekend after more than three months of war and incessant Israeli attacks on southern Lebanon.
The cancellation of the exams had, for several weeks, been the subject of controversy, with some parties demanding that the exams not take place, arguing that students were unprepared because of the war and that security conditions did not allow easy access to exam centers, while Education Minister Rima Karameh had insisted on refusing a cancellation.
The decision was announced early in the afternoon by Karameh, while the Cabinet was still meeting at the presidential palace in Baabda under the chairmanship of President Joseph Aoun. "The Cabinet has canceled the official general and technical baccalaureate exams for the 2025-2026 school year," the minister said, specifying that continuous assessment grades will be used to obtain a certificate of completion for secondary studies.
The Lebanese baccalaureate exams, which mark the end of students' school journey, allow for the granting of an official Lebanese diploma certifying the completion of school studies and the entry to university. The Lebanese brevet had already been canceled earlier by Karameh, while the French baccalaureate, organized in many private schools, had been canceled in Lebanon and other countries of the region by Paris and replaced by continuous assessment.
'Students are paying the price,' laments Karameh
In a press conference, the minister said that "it is clear in the country’s exceptional circumstances that security and military authorities cannot guarantee official exams can be held safely throughout the territory." "We could not delay any longer or keep waiting, because students, their parents and universities need clarity," she emphasized. Karameh, who appeared visibly upset by the Cabinet's decision, regretted that the cancellation of the baccalaureate exams may have been influenced by “the populist mobilization of certain parties who turned the educational debate into a political controversy, triggering a wave of sympathy” for canceling the exams.
“Students are paying the price,” she lamented, in a sharp criticism of her detractors, notably members of the Parliamentary Education Committee. The Education Minister finally reminded that “official exams are the surest way to assess students under normal circumstances.”
According to a source in education quoted by L’Orient-Le Jour, “the continuous assessment grades from the school year up to March 1, 2026, will be considered for the certificate of school completion, knowing that the required average to pass is 9.5 out of 20.”
The government’s decision comes after several tragedies that have afflicted families in southern Lebanon. Among the most recent was the death of three members of the same family from the Christian village of Qlaya (Marjayoun) on June 2, in an Israeli drone strike on their car. Theodossia, Tony, and James Karam were traveling on the road between Nabatieh and the Khardali bridge on their way to their village of Qlaya, in southern Lebanon. The young woman, age 20, had just returned from the Faculty of Sciences at the Lebanese University in Beirut, where she had just finished her end-of-year exams.
While the Cabinet was in session, hundreds of students protested in the streets to demand the exceptional cancellation of exams this year.
After the ministerial decision, MP Edgard Traboulsi, a member of the Parliamentary Education Committee and the Free Patriotic Movement, who was one of the fiercest advocates of canceling the exams, said that it is “not a defeat for the Education Minister, nor a defeat for education, nor for the level of the Lebanese diploma, but rather a defeat for a project to fragment the education system, driven by unprecedented obstinacy.”
He criticized Karameh’s determination to maintain the exams, accusing her of “ignoring the advice of sages, the recommendations of the Parliamentary Committee, and the suffering of the population.”
