Beirut -

Mystery surrounds the fate of tens of thousands of Lebanese students, especially as they are a few days away from the start of the new school year, starting in mid-September.

Educational experts believe that the crisis will intensify after two years of education faltering due to the Corona pandemic, and the worsening of the collapse in Lebanon since the fall of 2019, due to the impact of the educational sector on the country’s crises, such as the scarcity of fuel and the gradual lifting of subsidies on it, and the loss of the Lebanese pound more than 95% of its value.

How is the educational family preparing for the midst of this school year?

At the end of last August, the caretaker Education Minister, Tariq Al-Majzoub, announced his ministry’s plan to return to public schools starting from September 27, leaving private schools free to develop their plan to return to teaching.

While the Ministry of Education is intensifying its meetings with the relevant ministries, trade unions and educational associations, and with international donors, many believe that it has been late by rummaging for solutions pending financial and procedural settlements.

The President of the Republic, Michel Aoun, announced his intention to hold an educational conference at the Republican Palace.

However, an official source in the Ministry of Education, explains to Al Jazeera Net, that the date of the conference has not yet been set, and that Minister Majzoub continues his meetings with foreign donors, and calls for the provision of school fuel support, and support for the prices of textbooks and stationery, all of which are related to the official decision to provide funding for it, whether from The state treasury or from the Central Bank of Lebanon, or obtaining external grants.

Libraries viewer

Most school libraries seem almost empty, unlike the previous seasons, while the national books for official schools have not yet been put on the market due to the dispute over their pricing mechanism.

The Lebanese woman, Suad Muhammad, 39, toured a bookstore, expressing her shock at the high price of books. She told Al Jazeera Net, "I probably need 3 monthly salaries to buy my children's books with stationery."

Then she goes in search of used copies of the parents of her children's school students.

One of the library workers indicated to Al Jazeera Net that the increase in book prices is due to the price approved by publishing houses, and is based on the Ministry of Economy's proposal to adopt 45% of the price of books on the dollar exchange rate on the (unofficial) black market, which recently exceeded 19 thousand pounds, which Makes the price of a dollar for a book at an average of 9 thousand pounds.

The worker showed us the lists of books for some private schools, which exceeded more than 3 times their previous cost, especially since some foreign books are imported from abroad and are sold exclusively at the actual value of dollars or euros, as well as some stationery requirements.

Lebanon's schools are facing great financial difficulties (Al-Jazeera)

The suffering of the people

Some private school administrations raised their fees in pounds at rates of 30% and sometimes close to 70%, at a time when some schools surprised the students’ families by imposing a cash dollar amount, according to Yahya Al-Hassan, a doctor, civil and educational activist and father of two students.

Al-Hassan complained to Al-Jazeera Net about the suffering of parents who live in unprecedented concerns about the future of their children, especially since the crisis, according to him, overthrew the purchasing power of the Lebanese and crushed those who were affiliated with the middle class.

He said that the economic and living crisis came as a mercy bullet after the Corona pandemic on the educational sector, in light of the state's absence from performing its role in caring for citizens.

He pointed out that some private schools impose a percentage payment in dollars without including it in the annual budget, which is supposed to be legally approved by parents' committees.

In front of the Ministry of Education in Beirut (Al-Jazeera)

Here, the head of the Teachers Syndicate in Private Schools, Rodolphe Abboud, confirms to Al-Jazeera Net that every increase in installments in pounds outside the school budget is illegal, and that imposing payment of a percentage of the installments in dollars is a clear violation of Lebanese laws.

But schools are suffering from major crises, according to Abboud, and they need direct support from the state, such as leniency in some taxes, obtaining fuel at subsidized prices and giving advances to support teachers’ salaries and the operating costs of schools.

The coordinator of the Union of Parents and Guardians Committees in Private Schools, Qahtan Madi, stresses that the state must carry out its duties to support students, and does not deny to Al Jazeera Net the schools’ need for new financial resources, refusing on behalf of parents to weaken them by imposing increases in premiums, while most of them are ordinary employees in the two wires. Civil and military.

The Lebanese gradually lost the value of their income, so the minimum wage, for example, became equivalent to 35 dollars, after it was 450 dollars.

In a study of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) in early September, it warned that the proportion of the population in Lebanon who suffer from multidimensional poverty would double between 2019 and 2021 from 42% to 82%.

The cries of the teachers

Under the slogan "Day of Rage", yesterday, Wednesday, about a thousand teachers from the public and private sector participated in a sit-in in front of the Ministry of Education building in Beirut, and raised slogans, including "No return to schools until salaries are corrected."

Hussein Jawad, head of the Association of Public Basic Education in Lebanon, indicates that the school year begins when teachers regain purchasing power.

He told Al Jazeera Net that the teachers refuse to lose the academic year, "but the bet is on the state's fairness to teachers, because the salary of the best professor does not exceed 150 dollars."

Teachers' slogans on "the day of their anger" (Al-Jazeera)

educational implications

With time constrained, the fate of the school year is still bleak, raising questions about the future of education in a country that is in a state of great decay at various levels.

Hiam Ishaq, Head of the Science Department at the Faculty of Education at the Lebanese University and a consultant at the Educational Center for Research and Development, considers that the school year is facing a challenge, either the attendance of schools, or the year is lost at all.

If schools, teachers, and students are provided with the necessary subsidized fuel, according to Ishaq, the return will become automatic, because distance education has not proven effective as a result of the collapse of infrastructure.

Although the demand for an increase in salaries for professors is right and natural in Ishaq's opinion, achieving it in light of the bankruptcy of the state treasury seems very difficult.

She told Al Jazeera Net that education faces an existential threat, and "everyone must make sacrifices to save the future of students."

The school year consists of 32 weeks, but last year students learned less than 13 weeks, which means that educational sufficiency is not achieved. Ishaq explains that the Research Center is working to reduce the curriculum for the current year to about 18 weeks, taking into account exceptional circumstances, and is also working on a workshop to update the curricula for the coming years. .

Schools in Lebanon are still in a state of loss regarding ways to return (Al-Jazeera)

As for the educational researcher and retired professor at the Faculty of Education, Siham Harb, she believed that what is witnessed in education is a result of the accumulation of decades of mismanagement and corruption, and that successive Ministers of Education bear the responsibility for not working on a long-term educational vision.

She told Al Jazeera Net that the educational sector is complaining of a structural crisis due to the absence of networking between the ministry, the directorates, and the Civil Service Council, describing the official school as the "poor boy" of the state, until it lost the confidence of even its teachers, who provide their income to educate their children in private schools.

From the researcher’s point of view, the solutions that are being worked on are patchy and unsustainable, “because the educational sector needs an in-depth, scientific and statistical study, in addition to the need to rehabilitate the faculties of education, and it will not be achieved with an authority that caused a series of educational collapses, which poses a serious danger to the future of the new generation.” ".