Israel’s war is creating a ‘lost generation’ of Lebanese students | Israel attacks Lebanon News

Beirut, Lebanon – Israel’s war will create a lost generation of Lebanese students, deepen social disunity and destroy national unity, experts told Al Jazeera.

Israel has destroyed schools in southern Lebanon and expelled thousands of students. Hundreds of educational institutions have turned into shelters for thousands of people displaced personswhich led to the disruption of the education system which had already begun to suffer due to deregulation. financial problems.

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Schools in Lebanon have responded by using online learning and other programs to reach students, but education experts in the country say many are still falling through the cracks. And in order to make up for all the education that was lost, the focus has been on subjects like science and math, and topics related to citizenship are neglected.

In a country like Lebanon, with so many religious groups, that could lead to a dangerous future.

“The role of education is to build citizens,” Carlos Naffah, an education researcher, told Al Jazeera.

“We don’t want to face the fact that we have lost a generation,” Naffah said.

Ways to resolve differences

On March 2, Israel escalated its war in Lebanon for the second time in less than two years. It came on the back of Hezbollah’s initial response to months of unanswered Israeli attacks on Lebanon, including more than 10,000 violations of the November 2024 ceasefire between the two sides.

Since March, Israel’s offensive has displaced more than 1.2 million people in Lebanon, among them 500,000 school-age children, according to UNESCO. Not only have hundreds of thousands of students left their homes, but many of the schools they attended are no longer available.

According to UNESCO, 339 schools are located in war zones in Lebanon, while hundreds of others are now being used as shelters for refugees, affecting the access to education for some 250,000 children. A further 100 schools are in high-risk areas, meaning they will soon be inaccessible to students.

Due to the growing number of graduates, some schools have started to offer online learning. But education experts say this has its problems, particularly for students from low-income families, and that the mounting problems mean that every academic year since 2019 has been disrupted for some reason.

“Integrated learning has become a trend in Lebanon in the last few years because of the instability, starting in Lebanon. October 2019 Revolution to COVID-19, the economic crisis, and the ongoing war,” Tala Abdulghani, senior researcher at the Asfari Institute for Civil Society and Citizenship, told Al Jazeera.

Other solutions have also been proposed by the Ministry of Higher Education, in collaboration with UNESCO, including the opening of several public schools and the establishment of temporary study centers. They have also worked on integrating psychosocial and mental health services for students.

“Children are losing routine, stability, relationships and normal life,” Maysoun Chehab, an expert on higher education at UNESCO, told Al Jazeera. “Many have pain, anxiety, fear, suspicion of repeated displacement, violence, being around violence and listening to stories, and long-term instability.”

Increasing disagreement

Experts said the Ministry of Education and other non-governmental organizations are providing assistance to students where they can, but Lebanon’s economic crisis and a global reduction in humanitarian aid have made it difficult for families to find solutions.

“Poverty has increased dramatically, adding to the pressure on families who are already struggling to survive,” Chehab said. “Families are faced with impossible choices between paying for transportation, food, heating or babysitting for online learning.”

Chehab said these decisions cause some students to drop out of school, which increases the number of cases of child labor and child marriage. “All of this is happening at a time when public funding is in dire straits and the education crisis is one of the world’s most underfunded,” he added.

Even before the war with Israel in October 2023, education in Lebanon was bad. The economic crisis in particular has seen the disintegration of the formerly prosperous middle class, with Lebanon’s Gini coefficient, which measures income inequality, rising from 0.32 in 2011 to 0.61 in 2023, according to the Lebanese Center for Policy Studies. According to the 2024 ESCWA survey (PDF), Lebanon was in the top 1 percent of unequal countries in the world, and all this before the recent Israeli attack.

“This battle has broken out across the country, where we see a growing educational inequality where social and cultural factors are increasing if a child is able to learn at all,” Abdulghani said. “In the south, many students have stopped going to school because of displacement, insecurity, and schools in war zones.”

The dynamic change of the process

While students and school-aged children are among the main victims of the war, the educational system is also heavily affected by the pain that teachers feel because of the fighting.

“What we are seeing is the emergence of very disparate education where some children continue their education while others face long-term disruptions, loss of education, trauma, and isolation,” said Abdulghani. “This is on top of the economic constraints, the collapse of infrastructure, the limited opportunities for distance learning, and the huge psychological impact that war has had on children and teachers alike.”

Lebanese public teachers have been fighting for pay for years. With low wages, many take other jobs, such as teaching. Recent years have been particularly brutal for teachers as the economic crisis and funding cuts have seen their minimum wage drop by nearly 80 percent.

“Teachers are the backbone of any education, and they pay a huge price,” Chehab said. “From 2019 onwards, 30 percent of this sector left the country or changed jobs.”

Among the people who were displaced from their homes because of the war, there are many teachers, who in addition to facing economic problems, are facing threats to their lives.

“Education can survive suddenly, but this will continue for many years,” said Chehab.

Many experts believe that the current Minister of Education, Rima Karami, is qualified, but they said that many factors, including the ongoing economic crisis, political corruption, and the lack of public support, mean that more needs to be done, which requires what one researcher called “thinking outside the box”.

“The fear is that without serious intervention across the country, this disparity will have long-term consequences and leave an entire generation behind,” Abdulghani said.