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Education, one of the foundations of Lebanon’s uniqueness, is facing serious dangers which were highlighted on Monday, the first day of a workshop held at the Parliamentary Library.
The three-day workshop, which brought together key players in the sector and members of parliament, was organized by the Parliamentary Education Committee, in cooperation with the Ministry of Education, under the patronage of the Head of Parliament Nabih Berri.
The first day, devoted to public and private school education, provided a comprehensive overview of the challenges facing the sector. While specialists and MPs debated these difficulties at Place de l’Étoile, some 50 contract teachers demonstrated a few dozen meters from Parliament, opposite the Beirut municipality, to demand an improvement in their working conditions.
With less than three weeks to go before the start of the school year in the public sector, scheduled for October 9 according the Ministry of Education’s decision, what emerged from Monday’s interventions is that the main difficulties in public school education are: the lack of funds and the insufficient number of teachers due to the drastic reduction in salaries.
Primary schools
According to a presentation by Georges Daoud, Director of Primary Education at the Ministry of Education, the number of registered teachers has fallen from 13,500 in the 2020-2021 school year to 9,700 in 2022-2023. The number of non-registered teachers has also fallen, and the Ministry of Education is also suffering from a shortage of civil servants.
It is interesting to note that the number of non-Lebanese pupils, mainly displaced Syrians, is almost equal to the number of Lebanese pupils, bearing in mind that the former receive far more international aid than the Lebanese. This point was raised by several speakers.
According to Daoud, the 955 public elementary schools welcomed 205,542 Lebanese pupils during the 2022-2023 year, and 190,504 non-Lebanese students, divided between morning and afternoon classes.
However, of the $24 million that donor countries were to provide to Lebanon in 2021-2022, only $17 million has been handed over. The sum due is the total of the sums paid by the donor parties, which are around $140 per non-Lebanese pupil, and $18.75 per Lebanese pupil. According to Daoud, the sums for 2022-2023 have not yet been paid.
Secondary schools
At the secondary level, the number of foreign students is much lower than that of Lebanese pupils. In the year 2020-2021, Lebanese students totaled 75,568, out of a total of 83,554 students in public secondary education, according to a presentation by Khaled Fayed, Director of Secondary Education at the Ministry of Education.
However, the number of students in Lebanese public secondary education has largely declined, falling in 2022-2023 to 54,151, out of 61,725 students in this sector.
A decline in the number of primary school teachers is also clear. Enrolled teachers fell from 2,958 in 2019-2020 to 2,356 in 2022-2023, and the total number of secondary teachers (enrolled, contract and other) fell from 11,285 to 8,424.
The private sector
In Lebanon’s private education sector, like their colleagues in the public sector, teachers receive lower salaries than they did before the socio-economic crisis. Even if they are often higher than those in the public sector.
Another problem, however, is that of school fees, which have risen sharply, often through payments in dollars on top of fees in Lebanese pounds.
In Lebanon, there were 1,593 private schools in 2022-2023. Of these schools, 1,199 are fee-paying, 330 are quasi-fee-paying and 64 are run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), as explained by Imad Achkar, Acting Director General of the Ministry of Education and Director of the Private Education Department.
According to his presentation, of the 804,523 students who studied in these schools during the 2022-2023 year, there were 650,254 Lebanese students, 96,839 Syrians, and 46,377 Palestinians. Lebanese students therefore made up 81% of private school pupils, and Syrians 12%.
The figures also show that the number of private school pupils, which stood at around 765,000 in 2018-2019, and which had fallen sharply to 680,000 in 2020-2021, after the onset of the socio-economic crisis, recorded a sharp rise in 2022-2023, surpassing the 800,000 mark. Private schools have thus turned the corner.
As for tuition fees, they rose by an average of 220% in private schools between 2019-2020 and 2022-2023, according to Achkar. However, this increase is not accompanied by a similar rise in teachers’ salaries.
These measures adopted by private schools have been criticized by several parties, including parents’ committees, who are often unable to keep up with the increase. Some consider that it runs counter to Law 515 of 1996, which governs the budget of private schools and requires them to devote 35% of their expenditure to operating and development costs and 65% to teachers’ salaries.
Reacting to criticism of private schools that charge part of their fees in dollars, the Secretary General of Catholic Schools, Father Youssef Nasr, who took part in the workshop, called for the protection of the private sector, and “respect for educational freedom.”
Halabi
Speaking at the opening session, caretaker Minister of Education Abbas Halabi stressed that “public education is in danger,” adding that the two main problems were “structural, hence the need for reform and restructuring, and financial.”
He reported that the Ministry had paid teachers $125 a month last year, pointing out that the donor parties did not seem willing to present aid this year. Halabi recalled that he had obtained an advance of LBP 5,000 billion from the government in three installments, which would enable the aid to be handed over to teachers. He asked donors to pay $400 for each Syrian pupil attending school in Lebanon, instead of the $140 currently disbursed, noting that the sum should even rise to $600, following the example of payments in Jordan and Turkey.
Regarding the private sector, he stressed the need to apply or amend Law 515.
For his part, Hassan Mrad, Chairman of the Parliamentary Education Committee, who delivered a speech on behalf of Legislative Leader Nabih Berri, warned against the collapse of public education. He called for improved living conditions for public school teachers, especially contract teachers, who have lost 90% of the value of their salaries.
Tuesday’s discussions will focus on university education, and Wednesday is on vocational and technical education. Recommendations will be announced on Wednesday.
