Scale of missed schooling for Lebanese children 'near-catastrophic'

Syrian refugees and children with disabilities set to be disproportionately affected as Lebanon's state schools reopen amid fragile ceasefire

A man carries his daughter to school in the aftermath of an Israeli strike on Mar Elias Street, Beirut. Reuters

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Children in Lebanon are facing “near-catastrophic” gaps in their schooling due to the recent war and years of successive crises, a report has warned.

A handful of Lebanon’s government schools had begun to reopen amid a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Lebanese militia Hezbollah. But the war has brought Lebanon’s already crumbling education system to near collapse.

Since 2018, pupils in Lebanese state schools have missed more than 760 teaching days due to war, strikes, disruption and closures, according to a report by the Centre for Lebanese Studies and the University of Cambridge’s REAL Centre.

This amounts to two thirds of missed schooling for the past six years. The pandemic, the collapse of Lebanon’s financial sector and prolonged strikes by teachers whose livelihoods vanished with the devaluation of the Lebanese currency, all contributed to school closures.

About 40 per cent of children drop out before they reach high school, or grade 9.

Experts fear that without appropriate government action and international support, gaps in education could continue to widen, in particular for displaced children and those from refugees families.

Maha Shuayb, the report’s co-author, told The National: “My biggest concern is: are we preparing for the next crisis? How can we build a resilient educational system that can sustain the shocks?

“The war has deepened learning losses that were already near-catastrophic. Without thorough response planning, existing inequalities will become more entrenched, leaving entire sections of the younger generation behind."

Amid the crisis, the government and international agencies must continue to provide education “in whatever form it may be”, said Yusuf Sayed, professor of education at the University of Cambridge.

These views were echoed by Pauline Rose, REAL Centre director, who said: “Education should not be an afterthought in times of crisis, it is vital to future stability."

But the report authors said educators should also work towards making their schools more inclusive to accommodate displaced and disabled children, and better equipped to deal with the trauma experienced by pupils and teachers, to make sure nobody is left behind.

Uncertain return

The conflict, which is in hiatus, has affected more than 1 million children and 45,000 teachers, the report estimates.

Skirmishes between Israel and Hezbollah since last October disrupted schooling for months in southern Lebanon.

Israel then launched its ground invasion of the south in October this year and intensified aerial attacks, displacing more than 1.3 million residents. This led to the closure of almost three quarters of Lebanese government schools: 40 per cent were turned to shelters and 30 per cent were within the zones of fighting.

The Lebanese government said schools would reopen in early November. In a phased plan, 350 schools not used as shelters reopened last month for 175,000 pupils, 38,000 of whom had been displaced. More are set to reopen with the current ceasefire in place.

But harsh realities on the ground tell a different story. About one third of those displaced have been unable to return to their devastated villages. In some cases there is no home to go back to, and in others, Israeli control of a 5km buffer zone on the Lebanese border prevents any return. “What support is the government planning? What will happen to the education of these children?” Prof Shuayb said.

There have also been cases of displaced children being turned away from other state schools in the communities that are hosting them. Prof Shuayb said a stronger plan to make sure these children were integrated into new schools was needed. “Will these children be welcomed, how are we going to address issues around social cohesion?” she said.

The schools were not yet equipped to provide mental health support for children traumatised by war, and the displaced. “It’s part of that provision to provide psychosocial support or trauma support, so that the school becomes a safe space,” Prof Sayed said.

Lebanon’s government schools have long been seen as a “last resort” for parents, who prefer to send their children to private schools, a portion of which are low cost, or free.

But the financial crisis led many families to turn to state schools, which have been closed more often than not over the past six years.

Unicef Lebanon’s director Amal Obeid spoke of the risks to young people’s education in an appeal in London last week. “Kids dropping out of education is a trend that started happening after the economic crisis,” she told guests of the Lebanese embassy.

Families said they have faced further financial difficulties since the war started, meaning many more turning to state schools, or pupils dropping out entirely. Syrian refugees and disabled children are likely to be disproportionately affected, the report said.

Close to half a million Syrian refugees in Lebanon are children of school age. But they face discrimination and struggle to enrol for government school programmes. Currently, 110,000 Syrian children are enrolled in state schools, while 97,000 attend private schools and 60,000 take part in non-formal education programmes.

Despite the challenges, Syrian parents were statistically more likely to resume their children’s schooling (78 per cent), and more than half (52 per cent) of Syrian parents described education as high priority for their families.

The report estimates up to 5,000 children with disabilities could be out of school. Some parents were reluctant to send those children back due to the lack of inclusive provision.

Teachers

Teachers have also been affected by the war, with many displaced or struggling financially. The report warns that more needs to be done to protect teachers and equip them with the skills to deal with traumatised children.

About two thirds of teachers (66 per cent) said the war had reduced their incomes while living costs were rising.

Fewer than one in five teachers from the areas affected by the war considered restarting school “a high priority”. They also tended to prefer online learning, often for safety reasons, while those in less disrupted regions felt better prepared to resume education in the classroom.

Before the war, most state schoolteachers in Lebanon left the profession or emigrated after the financial crisis.

Long-term effects

It can take years for children and young people to catch up on disrupted education.

But the ramifications of not doing so are far reaching, said Prof Sayed. “The immediate consequence is the loss of hope. Young children lose hope in the future,” he said. "When they lose hope in the future, you have a problem on your side."

In the long term, Lebanon is in danger of having a “whole generation without learning”, a huge loss to resource skills in the country, Prof Sayed said. “We’re creating the problems of tomorrow,” he added.

The wars in Lebanon, Gaza and Sudan feature such a large and unprecedented scale that he fears their potential impacts cannot yet be fully understood, “even from a research point of view”.

The study was undertaken at the end of October and involved a survey of 1,151 parents and teachers – many of whom were living in displacement shelters without proper access to internet – supplemented with focus groups and interviews.

Researchers found 303 public schools were running in-person learning and 297 operating online, but in conflict-hit regions such as Baalbek-Hermel, Nabatieh and the wider south Lebanon area barely any were open for learning in the classroom.