Lebanon follows up on students' conditions in Syria

The Lebanese Minister of Education and Higher Education, Hassan Diab Beirut – Somayya Mahmoud The Lebanese Minister of Education and Higher Education, Hassan Diab, recently followed up on the conditions of Lebanese students in Syrian universities during a meeting with a student delegation in the presence of the president of the Lebanese university Adnan El-Sayed Hussein.
The students explained their situation within the security situation in Syria, particularly their inability to go home in the meantime to avoid missing final examinations in Aleppo and Damascus universities after the latest developments.
Diab assured the delegation that he presented "a draft decree to the cabinet after receiving a proposal from the head of the Lebanese university, prepared by the deans, to facilitate exceptional solutions for these students, since university laws and system doesn’t allow receiving them except after a decree has been issued”.
He said: “The goal is to treat them equally with the Lebanese who fled Iraq after the war. The decree gives the university more freedom [in this concern]”. He hoped that the law will be passed in the cabinet next week.
He asked the students to continue their studies in their universities in Syria if the security situation allowed in order to avoid losing their academic credits. Students who move from one university to another, he explained, even within the same country, lose credit and grades due to the difference in university system, curriculum and philosophy of education.
Diab said: “Each case will be considered separately...students must prepare a list with their names, specialisations, and years of study and communicate with other countries that have educational exchange programmes with Syrian universities while the ministry would follow up by finding solutions that would help keep students’ grades and credit.”
On his part, Al-Sayed Hussein, president of the Lebanese university thanked the minister for his “early initiative” and referred to previous meetings with him prior to the crisis and his meetings in turn with the deans to prepare the draft proposal. He said: “There’s an entrance exam that we cannot cancel but through the decree we can facilitate it and orient it to suit the situation. [Another obstacle is that] the language of study is also foreign, either French or English”. He also mentioned the capacity of the universities, particularly in applied colleges and medical fields.