Lebanon: students and teachers return to school after two years off
Audio 01:20
Photo taken on June 30, 2020 shows the personal effects of students before the COVID-19 closure at Notre-Dame de Lourdes school in the Lebanese town of Zahlé.
AFP - JOSEPH EID
Text by: RFI Follow
2 min
Between the economic crisis and that of the coronavirus, the portals of schools had remained closed for the past two years, replaced by online courses.
But between the blackouts and the internet, it was impossible for the poorest children to study properly.
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With our correspondent in Beirut
,
Noé Pignède
In one of the public schools in Saïda, about forty kilometers south of the capital, hundreds of masked children are back on the school benches.
Deprived of face-to-face lessons for 2 years, 9-year-old Mahmoud is happy to find his teachers: “
I'm happy to come to school, because I like it, and I like studying French.
I would like to be a doctor ”.
In the next room, Angie is also delighted that the online classes are finally over: “
I'm very happy to be going back to school, it's great.
It's not like online lessons, where I don't understand anything
”.
► To read also:
Lebanon: with the crisis, some children may never return to school, fears an NGO
Due to a lack of electricity and a good internet connection, most of the students at this school in a working-class neighborhood have not had lessons for 2 years.
Nour is an English teacher: “
If we hadn't reopened it would have been a disaster.
Their brains are almost extinct.
They forgot the alphabet, they forgot everything!
They have to re-acclimatize to school.
But they want to study, and I feel them happy!
They take it very seriously
”
But with the financial crisis strangling Lebanon, teachers' salaries now amount to less than one euro an hour.
Regardless, for Nour, who refuses to give up: "
Even for free, I will continue to teach ... Because it is on this generation that the future of the country depends.
They have the right to an education
”.
For its part, the government has announced an increase in wages within a month.
If this deadline is not met, the unions threaten to go on strike.
► To read also:
Lebanon: total "blackout" after the shutdown of two power plants for lack of fuel
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