Once renowned for producing a highly educated and skilled workforce, Lebanon faces a grim future as an entire generation of students are missing out on schooling. Classrooms in Lebanon are empty, dark, and silent. Public school teachers have been on strike since December 2022. They are protesting poor working conditions in schools and calling for salary adjustments. Salaries have become too low to cover rent and basic expenses.
Even before the economic crisis public education has been historically underfunded with less than 2 percent of GDP allocated to education in 2020. This is one of the lowest rates in the world. Instead, Lebanon has relied upon non-government education – private and charity schools – to educate its children. More than two-thirds of students attended private schools but in recent years, this number has dwindled due to soaring costs. Tens of thousands have transitioned back into the crumbling public system as households struggle to make ends meet. Both private and public schools are impacted by ever increasing fuel costs which sees them struggle to keep the lights on.
In March 2023, teachers in Lebanon’s private schools also announced a strike. They are demanding five litres of fuel per day like their public school counterparts. They are also calling for salary increase to combat the rapid inflation caused by the devaluation of the currency against the US dollar.
An economy in freefall
Lebanon’s financial meltdown in late 2019 has been decades in the making due to mismanagement and corruption by the political leadership. Add to this a global pandemic, a steady influx of refugees from Syria and the port blast in Beirut in August 2020, and you have nearly an entire country of 6 million people being plunged into poverty.
The value of Lebanon’s currency has fallen 97 percent since 2019 while other costs have skyrocketed. During the period between 2019 and 2022, salaries for teachers have declined by 90 percent. Teachers in the public sector currently earn the equivalent of around US$50 per month (about US$1 per hour). This is despite several raises since 2019. Meanwhile, teachers in private schools are plunged into a situation whereby parents can no longer afford to pay fees. Which in turn results in schools being unable to pay teachers’ wages.
Maya Geara, legal adviser to the union of private schools’ students parents’ committees told L’Orient Today that families can’t afford increases in tuition, especially if the increase is in dollars. “We know that teachers’ salaries are worthless and that their demands are legitimate. But parents are in the same situation. Some of them don’t get any income in dollars. Like the teachers, they cannot afford fuel,” she said.
Mother of four, Rana Ghalib, spoke to The Associated Press (AP) about her anxiety at seeing her children at home but expressed sympathy with Lebanon’s teachers. “The classrooms are basically empty because teachers are demanding their rights and they’re dark because there is no fuel,” she told AP.
Girls and refugees bear burden
While the education crisis in Lebanon is cause for extreme concern for all students, the impact on girls and refugee children is even more serious. Head of UNICEF Lebanon, Edouard Beigbeder, told Retuers about an “increase in… girls getting into early marriage.” Meanwhile in February 2023, Human Rights Watch reported thousands of Syrian refugee students have been cut off from classes funded by international donors. The decision seemingly by choice, rather than necessity as an Education Ministry official stated “It is not acceptable that our children do not learn while the children of others do,”.
Children living in Palestinian refugee camps are among the worst affected – the economic crisis has seen 93 percent of Palestinian refugees now living in poverty (UN agency for Palestinian Refugees, UNRWA). Transportation costs prohibit families being able to send children to school. Exploding fuel costs result in homes not being warm during winter. Electricity cuts often leave families with only two hours of government electricity per day, leaving no option but for children to find activities outside their homes. Unlike their peers who are also facing a difficult situation, Palestinian refugee children do not have access to playgrounds or parks and are forced to hang out in the dark, cold alleyways of the camps where electricity wires dangle down and mix dangerously close to water pipes.
A dire future
Lebanon’s last economic lifeline lies with the exodus of skilled people who fled during the economic crisis. They are sending remittances back home to support their families and Lebanon has become “the world’s most remittance-dependent country.”
If the education crisis continues to deepen, the World Bank has warned that ‘the future productivity of the labour force and the country’s trajectory for equitable growth is at risk’. Recent results from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) are already showing alarming signs with two-thirds of Lebanese students not achieving basic literacy.
Beigbeder has warned of a “learning catastrophe” with “immediate and long-term impacts on children’s learning, protection and future prosperity.” This will not only further impede the recovery from the current economic crisis, but as a generation of students are being left behind, it will also lead to Lebanon losing one of its most valuable assets – human capital.