BEIRUT: The UCC might reconsider the correction of official exams UCC head Nehmeh Mahfouz told The Daily Star Sunday, saying that the union acts in accordance with what is best for the students.
"We work in education and they work in politics, we are the ones who care about the future of our students,” Mahfouz said.
The UCC head said he was aware that the education minister was using issuing passing certificates as a pressure card against the union, but “with the issuance of the certificates, the UCC is reconsidering what is best for the students,” and “might consider the correction of official exams.”
Mahfouz said that the UCC will hold General Assembly meetings Monday and Tuesday, in which a decision will be made regarding the correction of the exams.
“If the UCC decides to correct, and the minister refuses, let him take responsibility for ruining the students’ academic future,” said Mahfouz.
Education Minister Elias Bou Saab decided Saturday to issue passing certificates to thousands of students who took official exams, after efforts failed to convince teachers to back down on their boycott of correcting the tests.
Bou Saab said that there is a precedent to issuing passing certificates and that Speaker Nabih Berri would adopt the decision to issue passing certificates in Parliament on the basis of a similar decision issued during the civil war in 1987 and 1988.
Berri had held talks Saturday morning with Future MP Bahia Hariri, a former education minister, on the issue of the salary scale, the central dispute between the teachers and the government.
“I have clarified to the UCC that the problem with passing the salary scale was merely political, something that is disrupting the whole country and had nothing to do with the draft law itself,” Bou Saab said.
The Union Coordination Committee opposed issuing passing certificates to students who took official exams, saying that “there is not fairness or achievement when the best student and the worst are matched.”
“The solution does not come by running away from the core problem and adding another problem like the issuance of passing certificates,” said Mahfouz in a statement Saturday.
“We will not allow lawmakers to extend Parliament’s mandate before resolving the salary scale,” he added.
The UCC head said that the union will definitely confront plans to extend Parliaments mandate, not disclosing the specific method in which it will do so.
“Parliament had already extended its mandate once without producing anything new, so if they convene in a session to extend their mandate, without resolving the salary scale, we will not let them exit the premise before they do so,” warned Mahfouz.
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