By IPS Correspondents
DAMASCUS, Sep 17 2001 (IPS)

Syrian President Bashar Assad has issued more than 100 decrees since he succeeded his late father Hafez last year.

One of the decrees, regarded as crucial in Syria, has ended more than half a century of socialist government monopoly over higher institution of learning.

Syria’s four state-run, overcrowded universities – in Damascus, Aleppo, Latakia and Homs – currently admit only students with secondary school diplomas. This system will end soon.

Parliament has passed a law making any high school certificate, equivalent to a Syrian baccalaureate, acceptable to the ministry of education. Previously, any certificate not obtained at a Syrian school was not accepted for employment in the public sector.

Those who studied abroad or at foreign schools in Syria were required to sit mini-baccalaureate state examinations with four subjects taken in Arabic.

The mini-examination, which covers Arabic grammar and literature, is too hard for students who did not study in Arabic schools.

A Syrian who studied at the American High School in Damascus and at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon, said: “Despite my degrees, I was officially considered illiterate in Damascus because I haven’t taken an equivalent baccalaureate exam.”

“Since my high school diploma was not rated as equal to the government’s baccalaureate, I was classified in government records as ‘not having gone to school’,” he added. “Before the passage of the new law, I would have been forced to take the mini-exam even if I was 60 years old, if I had decided to go after a government job.”

The decree makes any high school diploma, obtained from an accredited school anywhere in the world, immediately acceptable and transferable to a Syrian baccalaureate equivalent.

University professors and students have welcomed the new decisions as a step towards improving educational standards and increasing students’ choices of universities and study specialisation.

“This is certainly a good step that will have a positive impact on the standard of education and solve many problems hindering the improvement of higher education,” Damascus University Professor Faris Bawez said.

“I am very happy that I will have a chance to choose the specialisation I want according to my wish and not according to the choice others would impose on me,” said Adnan Abaza, a secondary school student.

Syrian education, based on the French system is a rigid, complicated and condensed curriculum that serves as a nightmare for every student and their parents.

Under Assad’s decree, Syria’s examination system also will change. “The new proposal, if ratified, would allow failing students to take ‘make-up’ exams, three months after the official tests are administered in June, and compensate for their lost subjects – without having to repeat an entire year,” one professor said.

“This would enable them to move on, make up for their academic loss, and go on to proper college,” he added.

Previously, the system was so burdensome and difficult, that some students used to spend four to five years doing nothing but repeating the baccalaureate examination.

It has become common in Syrian society for students who struggled in the education system to refer to themselves as: “baccalaureate first years” or “baccalaureate second years”. Some finish high school at 22.

The new reforms are likely to make changes among Syria’s new generation. It will offer students — 50 percent will now go to university compared to 30 percent before Assad’s decree — an opportunity to attend university and become professionals.

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