Issuing Official Exam Certificates Needs Parliament's Approval

Speaker Nabih Berri has said that a decision by Education Minister Elias Bou Saab to issue passing certificates for Grade 9 and 12 students needed parliament's approval and stressed that the wage scale draft-law would top the agenda of the legislature.

“We cannot overrun the scale. It will remain the first item (on parliament’s agenda) whether it was approved or not,” Berri said in remarks published in local dailies on Monday.

“We will then discuss the issue of certificates if the exams were not marked,” said Berri.

Bou Saab made the decision on Saturday after the Syndicate Coordination Committee stuck to its stance not to mark the official exams over the parliament's failure to approve the raise for the public sector.

He told As Safir newspaper that “there is no going back from issuing certificates.”

“Students are not a game. I took into consideration the SCC (demands) but eventually I had to take the decision and assume my responsibility,” said the minister.

Issuing certificates was the only available option and the only way to preserve the interest of the students, he added.

But Hanna Gharib, who heads the SCC, a coalition of private and public school teachers and public sector employees, told As Safir that his priority was to give the public sector's employees their rights and “salvage” the diplomas.

In June, Bou Saab struck a deal with the SCC to hold the exams but not correct them until the salary scale was approved by the parliament.

Although parliamentary blocs have expressed their support for the public sector's rights, they have warned that Lebanon's ailing economy would suffer if the total funding was not reduced from LL2.8 trillion ($1.9 billion) to LL1.8 trillion ($1.2 billion).

They have also disagreed on how to raise taxes to fund the scale over fears of inflation and its affect on the poor.