The May Sprint: How Lebanese Educators are Mastering the 2026 Official Exam Season

As of this writing, it's settled: Lebanon's 2025-2026 official Baccalaureate exams did not happen as a single exam day. After a spring of shifting plans — a three-session format, then weeks of political controversy — the Cabinet cancelled the Baccalaureate outright in late June 2026 and awarded certificates through continuous assessment instead, contingent on students averaging at least 9.5 out of 20 across the school year.

From Three Sessions to No Sessions: How the Plan Changed

The Ministry's plan didn't start as a cancellation. As late as mid-May 2026, the Baccalaureate was still scheduled to run across three sessions — June 29, July 27, and September 7 — with each student sitting two of the three rounds (L'Orient Today). That plan held for weeks. Then, after sustained public controversy over whether students affected by displacement and conflict could reasonably sit exams — and whether exam centers were safely reachable at all — the Cabinet reversed course and cancelled the Baccalaureate entirely in late June (L'Orient Today).

Why: Security, Not Curriculum

The stated reason wasn't academic. It was the security situation — a fragile ceasefire following months of war and Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon, and genuine doubt about whether every student could safely reach an exam center (L'Orient Today; LBCI). Nothing about the decision questioned whether continuous assessment measures learning as well as a final exam — it was a response to that year's specific conditions.

The Real Metric Now: 9.5 Out of 20, All Year

Under the final Cabinet decision, students qualified for a certificate of completion of secondary studies provided they averaged at least 9.5 out of 20 across their school-year assessments — as reported by Gulf News.

That single number quietly raises the stakes of every ordinary in-class assessment. When one final exam determines a certificate, a bad week doesn't sink a student's year. When the year-long average does, every trimester exam, every quiz, every mock exam becomes evidence that has to hold up — for the student and, administratively, for the school.

What Teachers Should Take Into 2026-2027

• Assume continuous, curriculum-aligned assessment is the norm, not the exception, for the foreseeable future — Brevet alone has now been cancelled three years running (2024, 2025, 2026) for three different reasons.
• Plan for a decision that can flip in six weeks. The gap between the mid-May three-session plan and the late-June full cancellation was that short.
• Treat every recurring assessment as certification-grade, since continuous assessment means any one of them could be the evidence that matters most.
• Keep it curriculum-grounded. An average that determines a real credential needs assessments that actually map to what was taught, not improvised material.

Building for Continuous Assessment, Not Just Finals

If the pressure has genuinely shifted from one final day to a year-long average, the practical need shifts too: teachers need to produce many rigorous, curriculum-aligned assessments across the year, not one. That's the ordinary, recurring workload Imtihan is built for — describe the chapters and level (Bac Libanais, Bac Français, or IB, across Math, Physics, and Chemistry, in French or English), and get a structured exam plus a full corrigé back in minutes, ready to review and adjust before it goes in front of a class. It won't decide what the Ministry does next year. It's built for the workload that keeps happening regardless of what the Ministry decides.