Theodosia Karam left her home that morning as thousands of students do every day. She was not heading to a battlefield or a military zone. She was on her way to a university exam.

She carried her papers and set out with her family on the long journey from her southern hometown of Qlayaa to the Lebanese University. She was supposed to return home after the exam, preoccupied with grades and perhaps already thinking about summer plans.

But Theodosia never made it home.

On the Khardali Bridge in southern Lebanon, an Israeli airstrike killed the university student alongside her father, Dr. James Karam, and her brother, Tony. What began as a journey to an exam ended as a funeral procession.

The responsibility for the killing lies squarely with Israel. Yet the tragedy sparked by Theodosia’s death has raised another question that cannot be ignored: should exams have been taking place at all, requiring students to travel across a country engulfed in an open war?

When Education Becomes a Journey Fraught with Death

In times of war, the role of the Ministry of Education is not to pretend that war does not exist. Its responsibility is to manage the educational process according to the reality on the ground, not an imagined one.

For weeks, university professors, students, and parents have been raising concerns about the risks associated with holding exams under the current circumstances. War is no longer a distant event unfolding somewhere beyond daily life. It has become part of everyday reality itself.

Large areas of the country are under bombardment, major roads have been repeatedly targeted, and thousands of students continue to experience ongoing displacement from one region to another.

Yet despite all this, the Ministry of Education and the administration of the Lebanese University insisted on proceeding with exams through largely routine procedures, as though the country were not experiencing one of its most dangerous security crises in years.

Where Is Educational Equity?

The issue is not simply about the number of exam sessions or their scheduling. The debate that occupied students in recent weeks, whether there should be one examination session or three, now seems secondary to a far more fundamental question: do the basic conditions for fairness, equal opportunity, and safety even exist?

How can a student living at home under relatively stable conditions be compared to another who has been displaced multiple times over the past months, or who must travel dozens of kilometers each day along roads vulnerable to attack?

And how can anyone speak of equal opportunity when some students are living under constant psychological and security pressures, while others face entirely different circumstances?

Beneath the Buzz of Drones

Beyond the dangers of travel and bombardment, there is another dimension of this debate that is often overlooked: the actual ability to learn and concentrate during wartime.

I am writing these lines while the sound of Israeli drones continues to fill the skies over Beirut. It is a constant buzz that has become part of daily life in Lebanon, accompanying work, sleep, and long hours of waiting. Yet familiarity does not make it easier to ignore. If it is difficult for those of us trying to work, what must it be like for a student preparing for a decisive exam?

How can we speak of equal opportunity when some students live under the constant shadow of bombardment and daily threats, while others study in far more stable environments? How can a young person be expected to review lessons and retain information when the mind is occupied by more urgent questions: Will we make it safely through the night? Will we be forced to flee again? Will our family members make it home?

Wars not only damage buildings and roads. They also affect people’s ability to think, focus, and function. Constant fear, psychological stress, the sound of drones and explosions, repeated displacement, and ongoing uncertainty all make learning and concentration significantly more difficult.

Education in Wartime: What Should Governments Do? 

During wars and armed conflicts, education systems around the world do not treat examinations as an end in themselves. Rather, they view them as part of a broader framework aimed at safeguarding the right to education without placing students’ lives at risk.

For that reason, many countries adopt exceptional measures during crises. These may include postponing exams, modifying assessment methods, decentralizing examination centers to reduce travel, introducing temporary continuous assessment systems, or establishing testing sites closer to where students have been displaced or are currently living.

Admittedly, some of these alternatives raise academic and legal challenges. Yet crisis management is, by definition, about balancing competing risks rather than rigidly adhering to standard procedures regardless of circumstances.

This is precisely where much of the criticism directed at the Ministry of Education originates. In times of war, the ministry’s responsibility is not only to preserve educational continuity but also to develop emergency measures that reflect an emergency reality. Insisting on applying peacetime rules during wartime does not demonstrate institutional strength so much as it reveals an inability to adapt to the crisis.

Experiences from conflicts around the world suggest that the seriousness of educational institutions is not measured by their ability to preserve examination schedules at all costs, but by their ability to protect students when the normal conditions of life have broken down. Governments and universities often resort to extraordinary alternatives, from postponing exams to implementing continuous assessment systems or establishing examination centers closer to students’ homes and places of displacement.

When access to an examination hall itself becomes an uncertain and potentially dangerous journey, the question is no longer how exams should be conducted. The more fundamental question is whether insisting on holding them under such circumstances can be considered a responsible decision at all.

Questions That Condolence Statements Cannot Answer

Following the killing of Theodosia Karam, the debate is no longer purely educational. It has become a question of public responsibility.

What safety criteria were used before insisting that exams proceed? Were the risks facing students traveling from the country’s most heavily affected areas ever properly assessed? Did the Ministry of Education listen to the students, parents, and professors who repeatedly warned about the dangers posed by the current situation?

No one can prevent Israeli airstrikes or guarantee safe roads in the midst of war. But the state remains responsible for its decisions. Today, it must confront a simple question: could thousands of students have been spared these risks through different choices?

The answer will not bring Theodosia back.

But it may help ensure that other students are not added as new names in future condolence statements.

Schools and universities exist to protect the future, not to turn the journey toward it into a test of survival.

What Alternatives Were Available?

The alternatives that have most commonly been adopted in conflict settings include:

Postponing examinations until security conditions improve.

Replacing final exams with continuous assessment or coursework-based evaluation.

Establishing decentralized examination centers closer to where displaced students are living.

Reducing the scope of exam material or splitting examinations into multiple stages.

Introducing online or hybrid examinations where infrastructure allows.

Giving students multiple options, such as sitting for exams immediately or in a later session without academic penalties.

Relying on previous academic performance or implementing exceptional assessment measures, as was done in a number of countries during wars, major crises, and the COVID-19 pandemic.

These approaches are rooted in the principles of Education in Emergencies and Conflict-Sensitive Education, frameworks promoted by international organizations such as UNESCO, UNICEF, and the Inter-agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE). Such frameworks emphasize adapting educational policies to exceptional security and humanitarian circumstances in ways that ensure continuity of learning without exposing students to additional risks.

None of these alternatives is perfect. But they are designed for situations in which student safety becomes part of the educational equation rather than an afterthought.

After today, the issue of examinations can no longer be treated as merely an educational matter. The name Theodosia Karam will remain a reminder of a moment when the state failed to ask the right question.

The question was never how to preserve the examination schedule.

The question was how to protect students’ lives.

An exam that forces a student to face the possibility of never returning home is no longer an academic test. It is a political, administrative, and moral failure.