Collective Action

Days before students across the country are due to sit for their official exams, a number of students and parents protested in front of the Education Ministry Tuesday after failing to receive the exam cards required to take them. Education Minister Akram Chehayeb said after meeting with President Michel Aoun that the students had not received exam cards because their schools were not licensed and had not submitted the lists of the would-be testees to the ministry, according to a statement from the presidency. Chehayeb said there were about seven unlicensed schools that each year demand for their students to be eligible for official exams. He reiterated that the ministry was intent on shutting down all unlicensed schools. Nevertheless, he said students from the unlicensed schools would be allowed to take the exams this year, at a second testing round in late summer. The second round is held usually for students who fail the first round. Protesters were seen in live coverage on local TV blocking traffic, sitting on the road between the ministry and the roundabout facing it, demanding that Chehayeb come to meet them. The students were also joined by contracted teachers protesting against a delay in their salaries, saying they had not been paid for the past five months.