Education in Lebanon

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All Lebanese schools are required by the government to follow a prescribed curriculum designed by the Ministry of Education. Private schools, approximately 1,400 in all,^[1] may also add more courses to their curriculum with approval from the Ministry of Education. The main subjects taught are Mathematics, Sciences, History, Civics, Geography, Arabic, and French, English or both. Other rotating teachers within the school teach Physical Education, Art, and at times library use. The subjects gradually increase in difficulty and in number. Students in Grade 11, for example, usually study up to eighteen different subjects.

The government introduces a mild form of selectivity into the curriculum by giving 11^th graders choice between three "concentrations": Sciences Humanitiesor economy, and 12^th graders choice between four concentrations: Life Sciences (SV), General Sciences (SG), Sociology and Economics (SE), and Humanities and Literature (LH). The choices in concentration do not include major changes in the number of subjects taken (if at all). However, subjects that fall out of the concentration are given less weight in grading and are less rigorous, while subjects that fall within the concentration are more challenging and contribute significantly to the final grade.

Students go through three academic phases:

Elementary : six years.
Intermediate: three years; students earn Intermediate Certification (Lebanese Brevet) at completion.
Secondary: three years, students who pass official exams earn a Baccalaureate Certificate (Baccalauréat Libanais) in the concentration they chose in 12th grade.

These three phases are provided free to all students and the first eight years are, by law, compulsory.^[2] Nevertheless, this requirement currently falls short of being fully enforced.

[edit] Higher education

Following high school, Lebanese students may choose to study at a university, a college, or a vocational training institute. The number of years to complete each program varies.

While the Lebanese educational system offer a very high quality and international class of education, the local employment market lacks of enough opportunities, thus encouraging many of the young educated to travel abroad; You can find successful Lebanese engineers, doctors, businessmen, etc. practically all over the world.

Lebanon has 41 nationally-accredited universities, several of which are internationally recognized.^[3]^[4] The American University of Beirut (AUB) and the Université Saint-Joseph (USJ) were the first English and the first French universities to open in Lebanon respectively.^[5]^[6] The forty-one universities, both public and private, largely operate in French, or English as these are the most widely used foreign languages in Lebanon.^[7]

At the English universities, students who have graduated from an American-style high school program enter at the freshman level to earn their baccalaureate equivalence from the Lebanese Ministry of Higher Education. This qualifies them to continue studying at the higher levels. Such students are required to have already taken the SAT I and the SAT II upon applying to college, in lieu of the official exams. On the other hand, students who have graduated from a school that follows the Lebanese educational system are directly admitted to the sophomore year. These students are still required to take the SAT I, but not the SAT II.

There are several prestigious universities in Lebanon, including the Lebanese University, the American University of Beirut, the Université Saint-Joseph, and the Lebanese American University. In addition, some students choose to study abroad. The United Nations assigned Lebanon an Education Index of 0.84 in 2005.^[8]