The correction of the official Lebanese baccalaureate exams was suspended on Wednesday in the North, Saida and Baalbeck due to uncertainty surrounding the remuneration of teachers for marking and supervision.
The process of marking the exams began on Tuesday by an acceptable number of public-school teachers. But some correctors suspended work on Wednesday, demanding higher pay – ten times that of last year, payment in dollars per corrected copy, as well as an increase in transport costs, according to information obtained by the daily An-Nahar. Work continued uninterrupted at the other correction centers in Beirut and Mount Lebanon.
The Ministry of Education has tripled the allowances in Lebanese pounds for taking part in marking the exams. But the question of remuneration in dollars has not yet been decided.
Moreover, according to An-Nahar, the Ministry of Education is holding discussions with the correctors who suspended their work in order to find a solution to this situation.
In this context, the teachers’ union called on the correctors to “resume the correction process as soon as possible,” thus giving “a chance for the efforts made to bear fruit.” In a statement issued on Wednesday, the union also urged the Minister of Education, Abbas Halabi, to “act swiftly to resolve this issue” so that students could “sit the entrance exams for Lebanese and foreign universities on time.”
Finally, the union launched an appeal to private school teachers, inviting them to “participate massively in the correction of official exams, in order to guarantee the smooth running of this essential task, which is an educational duty for all teachers, in both the public and private sectors,” according to the text.
