Center for Lebanese Studies

The Impact of Lebanon’s Compounded Crises on Grade 12 Students’ Readiness for Official Examinations in 2024

By Mohammad Hammoud, Maha Shuayb Amid the ongoing economic and social crisis in Lebanon, which continues to cast a shadow over the education sector alongside the Israeli aggression on southern Lebanon, Baalbek, and Bekaa, the question of whether Lebanese students are ready to take this year’s (2024) official exams is raised again. According to a recent field study we conducted on the loss of learning among tenth- grade students in public schools, a significant educational loss was revealed in mathematics, Arabic, and English subjects, primarily due to the loss of approximately 700 school days over the past six academic years due to the successive crises Lebanon has faced. As part of the education observatory that was launched by the Centre for Lebanese Studies in 2020 to study the impact of the economic crisis on the education sector, we conducted an online survey in May 2024 to examine the readiness of high school (grade 12) students for this year’s official exams after experiencing various types of crises and disruptions from educational interruptions to the accumulation of learning difficulties and educational losses to the ongoing Israeli aggression on southern Lebanon and Baalbek. The survey included a sample of 406 high school students (48% in private schools and 52% in public schools), distributed across the eight Lebanese governorates.