o some, the problem of official exams in Lebanon may seem purely technical, unrelated to the prevailing security and political conditions, especially under the weight of the current war. It may appear as simply a matter of administering exams here or teaching there, as it’s easy to reduce all crises to technical problems in a country that has long considered a technocratic government the effective solution to every crisis, without realizing that this type of government, in Lebanon’s case, is a subsequent predicament through which we attempt to address a pre-existing one.
From this perspective, one can examine the performance of Education Minister Rima Karami regarding the current issue of official exams, and her successive statements and circulars, especially since she was able to divert the attention of the Lebanese from the threats they were facing. Instead of following the daily warnings and alerts, they were waiting for the Education Minister’s statements regarding the exams.
Instead of searching for ways to survive, their thinking became limited to how, where, and when the exams would be conducted, how to prepare their children for them, how to get their children to and from the exam centers alive, and other fundamental questions that do not begin with the safety of the children, teachers, and parents, nor with equality, justice, and the basics of the social contract at the educational level, nor do they end with getting rid of the nightmare of conducting exams and surviving the war.
This is not merely a detail in a devastating war we are living through and whose repercussions we are experiencing. The insistence on holding exams might seem primarily aimed at persevering in creating educated generations, at ensuring the continuation of the educational process, as the minister claims, as if education and its meaning were solely tied to exams. But the question quickly reveals that the problem runs deeper than that surface; it is a problem related to education and educational philosophy itself: Are exams proof of knowledge? Aren’t most modern educational systems based precisely on the opposite premise?
In general, there is much to say about the behavior of the Minister of Education, whether in the war or in the traditional and didactic standards that she adopts in a world that is exploding with successive and rapid revolutions against every tradition, or in the authoritarian behavior represented by the persistent attempts to enshrine one opinion, especially when she describes dissenting opinions as demagoguery, or when she closes the commenting feature on the official ministry pages, or when she summons the sectarian parties responsible for the country’s disastrous situation resulting from their exclusionary practices within the sects that they dominate, confiscate their representation and exclude every dissenting opinion within them, either by accusing them of treason or by threatening them, up to liquidation.
Much discussion and criticism could also be leveled at the technical handling of an issue deeply rooted in society and politics, affecting citizens’ security and lives, even going so far as to suggest that the minister’s insistence is part of a continuous effort to generate anxiety among parents, teachers, and students. But the problem is political, whether we like it or not, and its political dimensions are far deeper than what is immediately apparent.
On the one hand, the government insists, and a large part of the Lebanese people insist with it, that the war affects the state, affects all Lebanese people in all details of their lives, albeit to varying degrees, and even if it is more intense for some of them, especially since its impact on the economy and on the financial situation of Lebanon is very bad, and may lead us to places that are no less dangerous than the collapse that the country has been witnessing for years, not to mention the occupation army’s continuous encroachment on Lebanese lands, which means a flood of fundamental questions and problems that strike the state in its existence, in its entity, in its structure and image alike, and above all this, it undermines the sense of citizenship.
On the other hand, the controversy surrounding the administration of the exams and its justifications quickly reveals the opposite: that the current approach deliberately ignores the fact that the war is affecting southern Lebanese regions, schools, and generations in general, and the Shia community in particular. They are the ones suffering displacement and the devastating war being waged on their homes, in their areas, and in their communities. Therefore, the first question we must ask to restore a sound political perspective is: Does what is happening affect all Lebanese, as in any country experiencing a war of existence, or does it affect southerners and Shia exclusively? Is the Minister therefore proceeding with the exams in isolation from the political and security situation they are living through, in an attempt to reproduce sectarianism and societal fragmentation, this time through education?
The aforementioned predicament opens a wide door to the problem of the social contract, or rather, to the necessity of an educational social contract. The current reformist government, which claims to intend to restore confidence in the state, is supposed to work on building bridges between the various religious communities and the state. This necessitates approaching all problems through the lens of the social contract, especially the educational problem. In other words, in this predicament, amidst this devastating war, the government is supposed to work on reaffirming the educational social contract that reconnects what has been torn apart and attempts to bridge the gap of fragmentation and inequality among students of the same country. Instead, it is supposed to instill in students the notion that the war is only against one group, while students from other communities live their lives as if nothing has happened. This decision is fundamentally political, its aim not merely to address the issue of education and upbringing, but to view education and upbringing as the gateway to citizenship, the gateway to belonging to the state.
These are some of the pivotal questions that can form the basis of thinking about a problem that has generated so much unjustified controversy in recent weeks, especially after the martyrdom of a large number of students, their families, and their teachers, culminating in the martyrdom of Theodosia, Tony, and their father, James Karam, in the Khardali area, as they were returning to the besieged village of Qlaiaa in the Marjeyoun district from their exams at the Lebanese University.
At that moment, although the minister is not directly responsible for the Lebanese University exams—the university administration bears direct responsibility for their administration—the stark reality stood before us, leaving no room for evasion or cover-up, no possibility of portraying it as an accident, or even an act of fate. It cannot be categorized that way, because traveling on an occupied and threatened road, one that witnesses incursions, as well as on all the roads violated by drones, inevitably leads to death, if not the only possible outcome.
This reality speaks volumes: the imminent danger cannot be underestimated, cannot be ignored, and will cost lives! The biggest problem is that, after all that has happened and is happening, after the deaths of students and teachers, the minister only grasped the gravity of the situation after meeting with the parliamentary education committee. Just days earlier, she had wanted to send students to their exams in buses provided by the Lebanese army and security forces! Does the minister even live in Lebanon? Is she following the daily attacks that have claimed the lives of thousands of Lebanese? How can we trust a minister whose statements contradict each other? How can we trust someone who doesn’t seem to grasp, with common sense, the catastrophe whose deadly consequences we are living through? And this leads to the crucial question: how does she make decisions in her ministry?
While this issue is being debated across all platforms and at all levels, the government was expected to resolve this controversy, especially since the Minister of Education is appointed by the Prime Minister, who constantly emphasizes the concept of citizenship and the necessity of trusting the state and all its national symbols. Therefore, he is more obligated than anyone else to address this matter. The Minister’s actions place the entire government, and the Prime Minister in particular, at a price that will be paid from their political capital. Furthermore, she is burdening parents not only with the responsibility of educating their children but also with the responsibility for their lives as a result of a decision that is not theirs to make. This capital is primarily political, because its consequences deeply affect society, the state, and the regional and sectarian divisions and fragmentation that are the root of all problems.
From this standpoint, and in an attempt to correct the course and to revive the social contract, citizenship, and the state under a government that affirms these standards day and night, the Prime Minister must dispel all doubt by establishing a minimum level of certainty that contradicts all the anxiety, fear, panic, and uncertainty that the Lebanese people are experiencing.
This exceptional historical moment, under a government headed by someone who came from outside the forces of collapse, must be reflected in a decision that makes the Lebanese feel, at the very least, that their state is acting on their behalf, treating them equally, ensuring fairness, and holding accountable those who endanger their lives, at least in the context of examinations. Many solutions are possible, but they all begin with removing the minister from the decision-making position. Her Excellency constitutes the primary obstacle to any solution or possibility, not only in the official examinations and their technical procedures, but also in all educational matters. She has deprived the government of one of its potential avenues for political action through education by opting for a traditional, provocative, vindictive, and divisive technical approach to education, rather than an educational policy that fosters civic spirit, justice, and equality.
The Minister of Education has failed throughout the previous period, on both the technical and political levels, and in all concepts of reform. She did not take advantage of this ordeal to consider the huge number of solutions that might be perfectly appropriate to address a problem that strikes at the heart of the political level. Rather, she made the technical situation worse, without trying to open a gap in the horizon of wresting the decision from the feet of those who work continuously to undermine it by enshrining sectarian education, those who persist in dismantling its social contract, those who mortgage its decision, at all its levels, especially at the educational level, to serve, however we look at it, especially in the minds of the new generations, the interests of another state.