After the season of “3a2belak/3a2belik” comes the season of “Bonne rentrée.” A ritual phrase, almost mechanical, marked by the smell of new notebooks and the plastic wrapping on textbooks. Here we are the return to school routine. But behind this façade of normality lies a far darker reality. What remains of the dreams of greatness for our students? Very little, if not a slow, inevitable descent into the abyss of mediocrity that we tolerate or even encourage.

The Lebanese education system, once renowned for its rigor and excellence, has become a stage for a frenzied race toward lowering standards. Intellectual rigor is traded for convenience, reflection for copy-and-paste, ambition for superficial minimalism. Each new school year is a cruel reminder: our institutions, once crucibles of knowledge, have become pits where bureaucracy and indifference accumulate. Curricula decay, teachers face unprecedented challenges, and official exams where everyone “wins” what a tragedy!

Yet, amid this decline, a few bastions remain. Teachers who, against all odds, continue to teach, pushing minds to excel. Researchers, often forgotten, who persist in exploring new horizons even as their laboratories fall into disrepair. They are the last lines of defense against the wave of mediocrity threatening to sweep everything away. In classrooms, they are Dolly Bitar, Mirella Elias, Roula Haddad, Maria Sfeir, and Georges Saber. In laboratories, they are Richard Maroun, Laure Chamy, Marie Abboud, Charbel Afif, and Zeina Hobaika, to name just a few. Thanks to them, some Lebanese still manage to soar and shine but, alas, often only after a short stop at the airport.

These talents, forced into exile, reflect our collective failure. They are proof that our education system no longer provides the opportunities and challenges necessary for our youth to flourish.

It is time to rethink our education system from the ground up. It is time to restore knowledge and science to their rightful place. The start of the school year is a chance for a fresh beginning a moment to question certainties and chart a new path. A chance to reinvent ourselves for our children and our country. So, to all students, teachers, and researchers, I wish a good start to the school year. A start marked by hope, ambition, and excellence a start that signals the beginning of a true renaissance for our education system.