Thousands of ninth grade students across Lebanon began the annual Brevet exam Wednesday morning, an intensive government assessment on nine subjects before secondary school.
Sitting exams at an unfamiliar site also requires heavy security measures, as teachers and exam proctors cannot personally verify the identity of students.
No security incidents were reported from the 35 testing centers in the Sidon, Tyre and Jezzine areas in southern Lebanon where around 7,373 students took the tests Wednesday.
Education official Bassem Abbas, who visited a number of centers in Sidon, said that only 2.24 percent of students expected to sit the exam were absent.
Further south in Nabatieh, more than 4,484 students were divvied up across 25 centers.
The students – none of whom witnessed the teacher's fall – still sat the exam, local media reported.
Students will take up the remaining six subjects two at a time, over three days until the examination period ends Monday.
The results for the tests are expected by the end of June, after which official certificates will be issued for the students, who score a minimum of 130 out of a 280 total and do not score zero on any of the subjects.
...