My brother presented the French Baccalaureate two weeks ago and he is now presenting the Lebanese baccalaureate “just for fun”. Most students enrolled in private schools don’t care about the Lebanese Baccalaureate and treat it as an optional exam that they don’t need to study for.
We pride ourselves as being a society with high literacy rates, yet are ashamed of our own baccalaureate and for valid reasons. The most important reason is that everyone cheats at the Lebanese Baccalaureate, and most supervisors support such behavior.
I wonder what’s keeping our ministry of education and the private Lebanese schools from enhancing this program and making it a decent one. It’s not like we lack the professors or intellectuals or the money to do so.
I only presented the French Bac. If you already have the brevet, you don’t need to present the Lebanese Bac, as you automatically get it through the equivalence.
Also the Lebanese bac is an archaic version of the French Bac. It hasn’t been reformed in such a long time. Why would you want to go through this mess if a better option is available?
And finally, the French Bac program is so much more interesting!! Take history for example. In the French Bac you study the world wars and the current history of France. What do you do in the Lebanese program? Fakhreddine and the like…
I think no change is happening because no one really wants to change the current state of things. Lebanese are happy with cheating unfortunately. Yesterday I heard my neighbor complaining because her son who was presenting the Lebanese Bac had a very strict supervisor who wouldn’t let him cheat. uff ma azna5a!!
Anyways, good luck to your brother.
An equivalence doesn’t mean that you got the Lebanese Bacc diploma. It means that the Lebanese government acknowleges the diploma you got by passing the French Baccalaureat. It’s not the same thing.
I presented both, just for fun as well, and for the sake of saying, I passed a Maths bac (spe maths) and a Sciences bac (science experimentaleS). Actually, my school discouraged us to present the Lebanese bac, and went even to saying they won’t give us our Lebanese Bac cards to present it.
The lebanese gvt every couple of years just says, no more “equivalence” will be done to try and push students to apply for the lebanese bac, but at the end they just back out and do the equivalence because they don’t have another choice.
French bac is def. much more interesting than the lebanese one when it comes to social sciences, and even biology but it was an issue for us in university when we started learning (supposedly easy) new maths concepts never explained in french system and this had put us in a disadvantage for a while until we picked up..
Hopefully our lebanese bac will soon become more interesting and mandatory!
don’t generalize 🙁 you lose your credibility…
“yet are ashamed of our own baccalaureate and for valid reasons. The most important reason is that everyone cheats at the Lebanese Baccalaureate, and most supervisors support such behavior.”
I’m a Leb Bac graduate before the system was changed in 2000. I think the program in itself, (history aside*) is not bad at all, and i never cheated on the exams, and passed them all (no honors) but a pass is a pass in my book, I’m not racing anyone…
I did witness cheating, and also witnessed strict supervisors that do have a sense of responsibility. Students will always try to cheat, not just in Lebanon, but all over the world, all you have to do is read the thousands of schemes that exist to beat the SAT and other placement test to know that it’s in our nature to find a shortcut however unethical or counter productive to our benefits it may be.
I was an English program student and never had the chance or inclination to know what are the differences between French and Lebanese bacc, but i know one thing, that taken on a global level our system is in fact one of the best and this why many Lebanese student find universities studying side such a breeze.
however, the university system in Lebanon and the curricula are what are flawed as opposed to western academic institutions. Our Universities rely more and theories and class work than vocational and hands on experience. I know there are trainee courses with credits, but they are not as strict and applied as they should be for the student to really take something worthwhile.
not to mention that many university faculty in Lebanon are not bothering with applying the anti plagiarism rules. A good chunk of students are having their work done for them or copying them off the net… It’s actually a habit now, and these students sometimes believe that they actually did the work…Copy pasting is a tough job it should qualify for at least 3 credits…
I and Many others like me learned a lot from our Lebanese Bacc, so please don’t trash it just because you think everyone is a cheat and every faculty member is a Fadia el Sher’a… it’s good manners and ethics that have gone lost in this nation… not intelligence.
* Robin,
History lessons oi took in my last year in Back did not include Fakhr el Din if i remember correctly. they revolved around WWI, WWII, the Early Stages of the Cold War and the Warsaw Pact,and Of Course Lebanon’s situation within that era, as in the start of Greater Lebanon, then the French Mandate, all the French governors in Beirut and their policies and later Independence… so it’s not that much different to what you say.
in fact i do agree that the Lebanese History and social studies should be updated extensively, but how can you write a history book about the past 30 years when the shit is still ongoing? it’s not over yet….. the Fat Lady hasn’t sung yet. History is made and written by the winners, and in Lebanon there are no winners, just a bunch of lost loosers…the lot of them
LOL! whats wrong with Studying Fakherddine? he is a historical Lebanese figure..Since when is the BAC francais history course far more interesting than the Lebanese one? Why would any Lebanese be interested in the Frech hisory over his own country’s?.. sad.
i wonder why as a Lebanese, i should study the french history??? They were “gaulois” still climbing the trees when we were Phoenicians writing philosophy and building cities and inventing medicament… I took the lebanese bac and am proud of my choice and succeeded with honors and when we had only one hour and no calculator to do the physics and maths exams, at the french bac they were taking naps in their 3 hours exams for every topic with food and beverage and calculators allowed… If with cheeting and 60 to 80 % succeed in the lebanese bac versus 100 % of success in the french bac every year in lebanon… I guess the french bac is way more easy than the lebanese one and that’s why most student prefer to take the french one…
I come from english background and sent my daughter to a frensh school. Now she needs to choose whether to do french or lebanese Bac since school does not allow both and we are going crazy . She always had mention excellent . Any advice on which is better for university ? which is easier ? Only thing i feel about my bac is that they should rely less on ‘bassem ” and go with analysis
the french bac is much more interesting because, in history for example, you have to analyse documents and questions, instead of rewriting what you memorized in the book. You actually feel like you got somewhere or you learned something new during the test. Same goes for philosophy and french.. You don’t read between the lines in the french test in the lebanese bac.
The lebanese bac is more scientific, i guess, because physics and chemistry are way harder.
I’m doing both anyway.
Hello there,
I’m in Terminale Scientifique soon sitting for my French Baccalaureat.
Both the Lebanese and the French curricula have their pros and cons. Of course, the French program is known for it’s way of ”teaching how to think” rather than pummeling students with formulas. In fact it trains the mind to reason and equips the students with analytic skills. Moreover, the French program priorities languages and communication which are complementary with the reasoning abilities that the student acquires. Plus, several hours of ”travaux pratiques” (TP) are implemented to sharpen the manual skills and to help students get acquainted with tools they may have to manipulate for their future studies/jobs. So yeah, we can fairly admit that the French system builds up students with analytic skills ready to face complex situations.
HOWEVER, (Here comes the deriding part…)
Every couple of years France implements ”une nouvelle réforme” that modifies the curriculum more or less profoundly. I have no idea what the modifications made on the literary part are, but I can assure you that the scientific part is gradually losing it’s name. To my mind, the scientific luggage is way too superficial (I am mainly implying mathematics, physics and chemistry). I have seen the Lebanese curricula (and now studying it) and I affirm that the divergence is striking. A comment by Robin said that ” the Lebanese bac is an archaic version of the French Bac” which is undeniably true but it doesn’t necessarily means that it’s worse (as far as the scientific subjects are concerned).
The more they ”renew” the french curricula, the less scientific notions remain. Can you imagine excluding the whole Electricity part of the Physics program for example (which is a major pillar in most kinds of engineering)?? Yeah well guess what… they did. I could go on and on about what they omitted but I guess you got the point. No matter how skilled one is at analyzing problems and giving an account on them, if he lacks scientific bases he won’t go far. This is inversely true: knowing scientific formulas isn’t sufficient either.
In my opinion, a combination of both curricula would be truly complete so for all of you Lebanese students out there who have the chance to learn both curricula, I strongly recommend you sit for both the French and the Lebanese Bac.
Hey, i need help pliz. I did bac1 in Lebanon and I am admitted (S3SG terminal). but I want to travel in France to continue my studies there, but it forces me to redo the bac1 there because they present officiel tests in this class. goal to travel to France is to make two preparatory years and enter “l’école polytech”. What do you advise me to continue in Lebanon or in France doubled the bac1 to reach my goal?
“Most students enrolled in private schools don’t care about the Lebanese Baccalaureate and treat it as an optional exam” please when you throw at us statements like these provide us with reliable sources,
thank you
i presented both Lebanese and French bac, and the first thing they teach you in Bac Francais is to back up your statements with sources 🙂