The Association of Contracted Teachers of Public Basic Education in Lebanon (CTLP) sent a letter to Prime Minister Judge Nawaf Salam, in which it criticized the way Minister of Education Rima Karami managed the official examinations file, considering that the meeting held by the ministry to discuss the file came with clear discretion, despite describing it as a meeting of the “educational family.”
The association considered that the problem does not stop with the failure to invite representatives from it, the parent committees, and a number of educational bodies, but rather in the “ministerial model” presented by the Minister of Education, noting that Karami described the educational opinions opposing its decisions as “demagoguery,” in an attempt to ridicule and belittle them.
The association said that the recent position of the Prime Minister defused the controversy that accompanied the decisions of the Ministry of Education regarding official examinations, but the minister, according to the letter, returned and organized a meeting voluntarily, which brings to the fore the decision of the State Shura Council, which last week suspended a decision of the minister that the association considered a violation of freedom of expression.
She added that the Minister of Education, in her words, “personalizes the work of the ministry and excludes anyone who disagrees with her opinion,” and resorts to punishing those who oppose her or criticize her policies, considering that this approach appeared previously during the movements of contract professors to demand social assistance.
The association indicated that it hoped that the ministry’s meeting would be a step in the right direction, but what happened established, in its opinion, a unilateral approach to managing the educational sector, pointing out that the Director General of Education’s presentation of numbers related to the number of students in unsafe areas, different from the numbers that the minister relied on previously, showed the existence of a gap in the approach to the file.
It also confirmed that the demand of a number of attendees to cancel official exams, according to the association, reflected the wide gap between the Ministry of Education on the one hand, and educators, students and families on the other hand, as a result of ignoring people’s choices and refusing to listen to their opinions.
The association stressed that it recorded its position on official exams through the media because, according to it, the doors of the Ministry of Education are closed, stressing that it supports the application of the principle of equality and justice in education, and that “building people is more important than building numbers,” and that the state’s embrace of students through the Ministry of Education is more important than exams that promote division and leave a feeling of abandonment among a large portion of students.
The association considered that Lebanese students should not pay the price for what happened, stressing that what is required is for students to feel that the state stands by them and supports them, not for education to turn into an arena of discretion and exclusion.
The association concluded its message by emphasizing that it did not wish for the government to be attacked through the educational portal, nor for the educational sector to turn into an arena of disagreement and discretion, instead of being a space for dialogue, partnership, and justice, in which the human being is a priority above all considerations.
