Education in Lebanon | Jordan Schwab

Education in Lebanon
The United Nations have three priorities when it comes to education. The first priority is
to put every child in school. While Lebanon has attended many conventions in the past, all of the
documents they have signed and laws they have passed have not been followed to the point
where they could fully go into effect. In 2010 the Ministry of Education and Higher Education
(MoEHE) made a document called Quality Education for Growth 2010-2015. This document
had five priority objectives to ensure improved education in Lebanon. While it was intended to
better all aspects of education, it kept the realities of education and traditions of Lebanon in
mind. One of the priorities was to provide education based on equal opportunity. This was to be
promoted by providing compulsory basic education to all children until the age of 15, by
developing infrastructure in order to make school accessible for students with special needs and
by introducing an early childhood development program. (Hamdan, n.d.). While the net
enrollment rate is rather high, it is not at 100% for varying reasons including the fact that lower
income families prioritize education of their sons over education of the daughters if they have to
choose (see graphs below.)
Primary Education Enrollment Graphs
Graphs show the net enrollment of children in primary schools which are under 100% and the
difference in enrollment by gender.
http://www.uis.unesco.org/DataCentre/Pages/country-profile.aspx?code=LBN

Education in Lebanon | Jordan Schwab

There are different types of schools that have varying levels of association with the MoEHE.
State schools are run by the MoEHE, are compulsory, and try to be as free as possible with the
exclusion of some fees established by the MoEHE for every family at the beginning of the school
year. Free-private school are, in theory, free and non-profit but in reality, are neither. Tuition fees
for free-private schools range from 135-160% of the minimum wage. On top of the tuition fees,
the MoEHE pays them subsidies of anywhere from 37-40 billion Lebanese pounds every year.
There are private school tuition fees which are not regulated by the MoEHE and range from
$1500 to $15000. UNWRA schools only accept Palestinian families registered with UNWRA
and are provided completely free of charge. The last type of school is a residential institution.
They are often referred to as orphanages. Children here come from a variety of backgrounds that
may cause them to have issues with education in the first place. The Ministry of Social Affairs
will often provide these institutions with daily allowances for every child in order to keep the
education completely free for them. There are varying numbers of each type of school
throughout Lebanon (see chart below).
Breakdown of School by Type and Number of Students Chart
Shows the different number of each type of school throughout Lebanon to show the true availability of free
and mandatory schooling.
https://www.warchildholland.org/sites/default/files/bijlagen/node_14/31-2013/education.pdf

Education in Lebanon | Jordan Schwab

The second priority for education the UN holds is to improve the quality of learning. One
of the main issues when considering the quality of education is the literacy of citizens 15 and
older. Of the 2,939,053 people over the age of 15 in 2008, 87.4% are literate (CIA, n.d). There is
a larger percentage of literate males than females, which correlates to the difference in
enrollment of the genders in school. The literacy of citizens aged 15-24 are the most literate at
almost 100% (see graphs below).
Literacy in Lebanon
These graphs show the rate of literacy among citizens in Lebanon.
http://www.uis.unesco.org/DataCentre/Pages/country-profile.aspx?code=LBN

The document Quality Education for Growth 2010-2015, there is another priority objective
that is aimed towards quality education that contributes to building a knowledgeable society.
This will involve setting up programs for professionalizing the teaching workforce and
modernizing the school management, and also by improving methods for achievement
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Education in Lebanon | Jordan Schwab

assessment and curriculum development. (Hamdan, n.d.). Lebanese people generally place a
high value on education. This value leads to better teachers and lower drop-out rates.
The third priority of the UN when regarding education is to foster global citizenship.
Quality Education for Growth 2010-2015 has a third priority objective that ensures education
contributes to social integration. This will involve introducing programs on citizenship
education. (Hamdan, n.d.). Other than this priority, Lebanese school is more focused on the
tracks students are assigned to based on an aptitude test. These tracks are in humanities,
economics, life sciences, sciences, and technical specialties. These are general studies which may
skim over the big questions, there are areas where the Lebanese education system could
elaborate or expand on to fully cover what the UN wants in order to foster global citizenship
until these students move on to higher education.

Education in Lebanon | Jordan Schwab

Work Cited
CIA World Factbook - The best country factbook available online. (n.d.). Retrieved November
06, 2016, from http://www.ciaworldfactbook.us/asia/lebanon.html
Country Profiles . (n.d.). Retrieved November 06, 2016, from
http://www.uis.unesco.org/DataCentre/Pages/country-profile.aspx?code=LBN
Education System in Lebanon. (n.d.). Retrieved November 06, 2016, from
http://www.classbase.com/Countries/Lebanon/Education-System
Hamdan, H. (n.d.). * %$ $E $%$ - War Child Holland. Retrieved November 6, 2016, from
https://www.warchildholland.org/sites/default/files/bijlagen/node_14/31-2013/education.pdf
Lebanon - Education system - higher-edu.gov.lb. (n.d.). Retrieved November 6, 2016, from
http://www.higher-edu.gov.lb/arabic/Guides/Other-Guides/Educ_Sys.pdf
Priorities | United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. (n.d.). Retrieved
November 06, 2016, from http://www.unesco.org/new/en/gefi/priorities/