The Tragedy of the Official Examinations

The Lebanese woman will not stand before the tragedy of the official examinations idle and heedless. Nor will His Excellency the Minister of Education stand negligent and careless before what we have called the catastrophe of secondary education, because, good man though he is, he has devoted himself entirely to the problem of instruction, has looked into every matter small and great, and has not — God be praised — regarded the ministry as a political post.

The results of the examinations, in both sessions, were appalling to the schools, the families, and the students alike. And now the October session closes with these results:

The baccalaureate: candidates for the scientific section 245, passing 50. Candidates for the literary section 296, passing 48. The complementary section (Brevet): number of candidates 303, passing 50.

These are figures that need no comment!! The correspondent of "The Woman's Voice" — whose mission, first and last, is study and then guidance — makes her rounds among the passing students and the failing ones, among the teachers and the members of the examination committee; and here, for the readers, is this reportage. May it yield some good.

An Hour in the World of the White Imps

When I entered the UNESCO building I saw a number of young women and young men who had come either to sit the oral examination after passing the written, or to keep company and radiate good cheer. They gathered around me sociably. I said:

— The girls among you remind me of the tale of the white imps.

The girls and the boys said: And what is the tale of the white imps?

I said:

— It is told that a king followed his fancy and did not govern his subjects well, and found himself at a loss when he saw his great kingdom collapsing day after day. One day a counselor came to him, relating what is written in the book of Kalila wa-Dimna: that the banes of the sultan are six, and one of them is women... So he made up his mind and mended his ways as best he could... And he resolved to spare his heir apparent — who was still in the cradle — the temptation of women and their mischief. He carried him off to the top of a distant mountain and forbade the guards to admit women or to speak of women. He went even further, and removed from his son every female among the animals and the birds, wild or tame.

The crown prince came of age, and his father took him to the city and brought him down to the market to show him the curiosities and marvels of the world. While they were going about, along came a flock of girls, laughing and jesting or bantering with the shopkeepers, and the crown prince asked his father:

— What are these, father?

— These are a species of God's creatures called the white imps.

When the king returned to his palace he asked his crown prince:

— What pleased you most among the things you saw today, and what curiosity would you like me to buy you? Ask for whatever you wish.

The youth cried out with joy:

— Father! I want nothing but a white imp!!

And the flock of young women and men at UNESCO laughed. And the girls began discussing with me the causes of passing and failing, with a lightness of spirit mixed with a great deal of earnestness.

Here is Miss Suad Abboud, a pupil of one of the private schools, who failed in the June session and passed in the October session.

— What was the cause of your failure?

— Shall I say? I will say it in all frankness... I studied four years after the elementary certificate — and I do not think I am among the dullards of my class. The cause of my failure is this radio. The examination was held at the Burj Abi Haidar school. The weather was hot, and all the doors and the windows and the neighbors' radios were open on every hinge! And such a blaze and such a din! I could not do a single arithmetic problem, so I failed. Today the examination was held at UNESCO — oh, that blessed quiet! — and I passed. A classmate of hers cut in:

— You failed because of the radio and passed because of the atmosphere at UNESCO?? And those long hours you took away from your study hours for the game of "basketball"?

And a relative of hers put in:

— And the arithmetic lessons you took from me over the summer — don't they count?

The conversation is cut short by a student who shoots past like an arrow behind a relative of his, one of the people of standing and influence. I addressed him gently so that he might give me a statement, but he answered peevishly that he "did not want to speak to anyone," and his influential, distinguished relative added:

— Mind you don't give your name.

I called the young man a second time — I had been told that he failed in both sessions — and asked him to tell me the cause of his failure. He condescended and answered:

— The cause of our failure is that the subjects were not classical.

As for that "influential, distinguished relative," I learned that he had come to ask the officials to show him the young man's papers so that he might review the examination himself and satisfy himself of the committee's fairness, because he believes his relative has been wronged..

Then comes the turn of Miss Sonia Abboud, a pupil of the French Evangelical College and one of those who passed the baccalaureate back in the June session. She says that her success is owed to the school's care and to her teachers, who are among the finest of women instructors, and to the complete harmony among the pupils; for there are no pupils who fail in the second class and get moved up to the first, wearying themselves and wearying the girls who pass.

— Do you intend to continue your studies?

— I shall sit for the philosophy section, and then for the faculty of law or political science, because I intend to enter the diplomatic corps.

— And if it should happen that a decent young man comes asking for your hand?

— If he is content to let me finish my studies, why not?

— And now — to what do you attribute this scandalous failure?

— There is no room for believing what is being said, that the texts were far from the curricula and were not "classical." As for the causes of failure — why should I not be frank? The candidates did not prepare all the literature subjects, out of negligence, laziness, and devotion to amusements beyond the measure needed for recreation. As for the young men, I think one of the causes of their failure is that their brains were busy thinking of....

Here a witty, mischievous girl interrupts her and says: "of the white imps"...

I leave the circle and go off toward one of the offices, and the student Abdul Karim al-Natour catches up with me — he failed by two marks.

Q — Would you care to say something for publication in "The Woman's Voice"?

A — And who more fitting than woman to publish the grievance of the sons! I sincerely believe that an examining committee composed of "practicing teachers" would be more merciful to the students! We appreciate the culture and the learning of every member of the examining committee, but we should like — in the mathematics branch, for example — to have our knowledge examined by mathematics teachers, not by engineers who left the school benches twenty years ago. And the same measure applies to the branches of philosophy and letters. I do not claim genius, nor do I say that I am strong in every branch; but, Madam, I failed because of two marks. Two marks only!

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O dear youth, rushing toward certificates and toward the fever of examinations, when will all the paths of success be smoothed before you: the home, the teacher, the books, the surroundings? When?

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Among the Government Teachers

I turned at once to a circle of the government teachers and laid before them the theory of the student Abdul Karim al-Natour. Among them was a lady teacher who is truly the first lady of the mistresses of teaching in this country, and she exclaimed:

— He is quite right, my friend. Which of us, having left teaching for ten years, would remain in touch with the mentality of the students? Or with the examination subjects?

Then I asked a young woman teacher about the causes of failure and the decline of the cultural level. She said:

— The family! And these new fortunes! They are a graveyard for the brains of the rising generation. The cinema, the amusements, the evening parties of this society and the tales of those parties — and then this money paid to the private tutors who come to the students at home — the homes of the rich, of course. All these processions of rich men's sons pay no attention to a lesson the school teacher explains, relying on the teacher of the evening... He solves the arithmetic exercise, and he writes the composition, and so on..

And there is an opinion offered by a literary civil servant. He said: When we strike from the list of candidates every idler who fell short in all the secondary classes and reached the baccalaureate class thanks to the indulgence of a school that cares for nothing in the student's affairs except collecting the annual fee — when none remain among the candidates but the competent, then the question becomes a question of luck... How many a pupil of nervous temperament sits down in the examination chair and in a moment forgets everything he has learned. How many a student has been promised a post, or a teacher's position, upon obtaining the baccalaureate, and entered the examination hall frightened and trembling? I shall tell you my own story. I obtained the baccalaureate in 1945, and I nearly failed from joy, not from fear. The night before the examination I opened the natural-science book and studied and studied — by pure chance — and studied thoroughly, three chapters that I believed I had not fully mastered. I did not sleep until I had learned them by heart. The next day I entered the examination hall. And oh, my joy when the proctor wrote on the board three questions from the chapters mentioned above! Then I woke from my stupor to find that I could not recall a single word of all that had been in my head. My clothes were soaked with cold sweat, I felt the hall spinning around me, and I sat before my papers convinced that I would hand them back blank. But it happened, in the final minutes, that I remembered something, and I wrote out one question — and in it lay salvation.

— It seems to me you are pointing toward abolishing the official examinations and relying on the schools to grant certificates to the competent??

— Something like that... provided that the universities institute, at the beginning of every school year, what we call entrance examinations — examen d'admission — for the branches of engineering, law, higher letters, medicine, and dentistry. And provided that the training colleges for men and women teachers take a similar step.

"The Woman's Voice": This is a thorny, grave opinion, but a sound and practical one; the specialists may approve it and they may reject it. In any case, this reportage is nothing but an exhibition of opinions.

And "The Woman's Voice" completes its rounds, reaching Mrs. Zaheya Ayoub — deputy director of Arabic studies at the Secular Girls' College and teacher of the baccalaureate class — and Mr. Rushdi Ma'alouf, a "chronic" member of the examination committees and teacher of Arabic literature at the American College for Girls.

And here is what Mrs. Ayoub says:

A — I have heard many people reproaching the schools and the country over the results of the examinations. As for us, thank God, we have nothing to complain of; the June results were an honor to us in both colleges. The Girls' College presented seven pupils, of whom six passed, five of them passing with distinction and winning the congratulations of the examining committee, Mention. As for the seventh, she passed in the October session, so that our final result for this year is one hundred percent.

Q — Would you tell us the causes of the failure and of this deterioration in school circles?

A — That is a door hard to enter. It calls for a skilled sociologist, good at diagnosing the diseases afflicting our society, which produce for us a flabby generation that does not appreciate responsibilities.

Q — I count this talk a plain evasion of the answer. Won't you dot

the i's and give us at least one cause?..

A — Well, since you insist on cornering me, I divide the causes into those whose responsibility falls upon the school and those whose responsibility falls upon the parents. The average pupil swings back and forth between the parents and the school, and falls into what leads him inevitably to failure.

The school's responsibility lies in its failure to seek the general good in choosing the teacher. In its eyes all the educated are fit to teach, so it seeks out the cheapest among them so that its business may profit. And the cheap teacher, like everything cheap, fits the popular proverb you know. Yet the school ought to know that a man in whom the aptitude for teaching is truly present cannot be cheap, since he is expected to throw himself into his work with all his strength. In that case his material livelihood must be assured, so that it does not distract him from his duties.

The parents' responsibility lies in this chaos that rules home life. Parents have forgotten that education means giving the example, and that the day they took up the burden of raising children they accepted the cross of sacrifice; they must be a good example before their children, or else they corrupt them. Are there many parents in our society who sacrifice their amusements, or some part of them, for the sake of watching over their children? I leave the answer to the results of the examinations.

And Mr. Rushdi Ma'alouf says: The causes of failure are many, and among the most important of them, in my view, is that some of the private schools do not have teachers of the level required for preparation for the baccalaureate.

That is because those schools would lose money if they paid the salaries of first-rate teachers; and if they raised their pupils' fees, enrollment would fall off.

Perhaps the best solution is for the government to undertake to cover the deficit in those schools' budgets, so that it becomes possible for them to fulfill their pressing desire to choose competent teachers.

"The Woman's Voice": We commend all this to the attention of those whom the matter concerns — efendim.