Improving Access to Education for Syrian Refugees in Lebanon

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Nov 6, 2013 Syria
[Logo of LCPS] [Logo of LCPS]

Improving Access to Education for Syrian Refugees in Lebanon

By : Jadaliyya Reports

[The following recommendations were issued by the Lebanese Center for Policy Studies (LCPS).]

The Government Must Improve the Access to Education for Syrian Refugees

Roundtable Discussion Series

The LCPS, CLS, and KAS discussion group recommends that the government takes the following six actions to provide better access to education for Syrian refugees: 

  1. Create an extensive database for Syrian refugees of school-going age
  2. Train extra teachers and assign them across the country based on demand
  3. Develop a strategy with clear objectives that takes into account equal treatment of Lebanese and Syrian students
  4. Encourage schools to have double shifts
  5. Increase coordination with local CSOs
  6. Develop an anti-discrimination and social cohesion building program for the schools
     

The Lebanese Center for Policy Studies (LCPS), in collaboration with the Center for Lebanese Studies (CLS) and the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS), held a roundtable discussion on how to improve the access to education for Syrian refugees in Lebanon, on 30 July 2013 at the Crowne Plaza hotel, Beirut, Lebanon. The meeting was co-chaired by Mr. Fadi Yarak, General Director of the Ministry of Education and Higher Education and Ms. Mejda M`Rah, the Education Programme Specialist in the Regional Bureau at UNESCO. Among the participants were scholars, experts, public school teachers, government officials, and international organization representatives. After a brief introduction from Dr. Maha Shuayb, Director of the Center for Lebanese Studies and Ms. Hana Nasser, Administrative Director of KAS office in Beirut, Mr. Sami Atallah moderated the discussion.

Key Issues

Syrian Refugee Students Have Little Access to Education

A study by the CLS for UNICEF shows that only 30% of Syrian refugees of school-going age have access to education. The number of Syrian refugees in Lebanese schools has dramatically increased from as low as 1,500 during the 2011-2012 academic year to 30,000 for the 2012-2013 academic year, while the government was expecting 9,000 students. The sheer number the Ministry has to deal with makes it very difficult to provide sufficient education.

Mismatch Between Location of Refugees and Schools

Furthermore, the problem is exacerbated because of the mismatch between where the Syrian refugees are settling and the number of public schools that are available. For instance, the 30,000 students are spread across Lebanon in the following way: 7% are in Beirut, 26% in Mount Lebanon, 21% in North Lebanon, 29% in Bekaa, 7.5% in South Lebanon, and 9.5% in Nabatiyeh. In some areas the demand greatly outnumbers the amount of places in a school.

A Problem of Numbers

The number is very large for Lebanese public schools to handle – there are 1,280 public schools in Lebanon. Syrian refugees are distributed among nearly 800 of these schools. At Lebanese public schools, fiscal and procedural arrangements are reviewed by the Ministry, yet principals have the local authority power to manage their own schools. The Ministry also contributes at the compulsory education level by covering the fees, which amounts to LL 150,000 for fees and LL 60,000 for books. On average, the cost of providing a seat for each student varies from LL 1,500,000 to LL 4,500,000 annually depending on the local conditions of each school.

A Lack of Documentation

Another big problem has to do with level and documentation. The Syrian curriculum does not match the Lebanese one, and most students have no documents to prove which grade they are supposed to be in. This issue is connected to that of equal treatment of Lebanese and Syrian students, meaning that Syrian students could be favoured at the expense of Lebanese ones in the application process to secondary education, or alternatively their rights to education might not be sufficiently upheld.

Violence and Conflict Is a Concern 

Participants have highlighted the rising tension among students due to their background and nationalities.  Furthermore, many of the Syrian students suffer from trauma and stress due to what they have experienced back home. Most often, teachers are not equipped to handle such circumstances.

Weak Coordination with Local NGOs

Although the Ministry of Education is working closely with UNHCR, UNICEF and UNESCO, there is little coordination with local NGOs working with the schools and students. This leads to problems on the ground, and frustration among the local NGOs, as they are the most aware of the particular circumstances of a certain area.

Key Recommendations

  1. The government should, in coordination with the UN agencies, create an extensive database for Syrian refugees of school-going age, including information on their level and obtained qualifications. This will facilitate better administration, assessment of students’ levels, and ultimately access.
  1. In cooperation with the UN agencies, extra teachers should be trained, and teachers should be assigned across Lebanon according to regional demand.
  1. The government’s strategy should be further developed, in accordance with all stakeholders, and with a clear vision and long-term view in mind while taking into account the ever-changing situation. It is imperative that this strategy places emphasis on equal treatment of Syrians and Lebanese, making sure one group is not benefiting disproportionally in relation to the other.
  1. The government’s strategy should make use of the prior experience of certain successful public schools, for instance using double shifts to absorb the high number of students. The strategy could also use innovative approaches such as incorporating a mixed health and education plan, since sanitation improvements are also much needed in many schools.  
  1. There should be increased coordination with local CSOs. Through a centralized response organ with a comprehensive long-term vision, the local context should be taken into account and programs adapted to the local environment. If schools themselves are given more authority, it will be easier for them to respond to issues particular to their own context.
  1. A broad anti-discrimination and social cohesion building program should be developed for the schools based on the experiences of the previous years. This could include using more social workers or councillors, more extracurricular activities geared at teamwork in the schools, and should utilize the families of both the refugees and the host communities, increasing their roles.
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Jadaliyya Reports By :
Jadaliyya Reports

Past is Present: Settler Colonialism Matters!

On 5-6 March 2011, the Palestine Society at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London will hold its seventh annual conference, "Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine." This year`s conference aims to understand Zionism as a settler colonial project which has, for more than a century, subjected Palestine and Palestinians to a structural and violent form of destruction, dispossession, land appropriation and erasure in the pursuit of a new Jewish Israeli society. By organizing this conference, we hope to reclaim and revive the settler colonial paradigm and to outline its potential to inform and guide political strategy and mobilization.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is often described as unique and exceptional with little resemblance to other historical or ongoing colonial conflicts. Yet, for Zionism, like other settler colonial projects such as the British colonization of Ireland or European settlement of North America, South Africa or Australia, the imperative is to control the land and its resources -- and to displace the original inhabitants. Indeed, as conference keynote speaker Patrick Wolfe, one of the foremost scholars on settler colonialism and professor at La Trobe University in Victoria, Australia, argues, "the logic of this project, a sustained institutional tendency to eliminate the Indigenous population, informs a range of historical practices that might otherwise appear distinct--invasion is a structure not an event."[i]

Therefore, the classification of the Zionist movement as a settler colonial project, and the Israeli state as its manifestation, is not merely intended as a statement on the historical origins of Israel, nor as a rhetorical or polemical device. Rather, the aim is to highlight Zionism`s structural continuities and the ideology which informs Israeli policies and practices in Palestine and toward Palestinians everywhere. Thus, the Nakba -- whether viewed as a spontaneous, violent episode in war, or the implementation of a preconceived master plan -- should be understood as both the precondition for the creation of Israel and the logical outcome of Zionist settlement in Palestine.

Moreover, it is this same logic that sustains the continuation of the Nakba today. As remarked by Benny Morris, “had he [David Ben Gurion] carried out full expulsion--rather than partial--he would have stabilised the State of Israel for generations.”[ii] Yet, plagued by an “instability”--defined by the very existence of the Palestinian nation--Israel continues its daily state practices in its quest to fulfill Zionism’s logic to maximize the amount of land under its control with the minimum number of Palestinians on it. These practices take a painful array of manifestations: aerial and maritime bombardment, massacre and invasion, house demolitions, land theft, identity card confiscation, racist laws and loyalty tests, the wall, the siege on Gaza, cultural appropriation, and the dependence on willing (or unwilling) native collaboration and security arrangements, all with the continued support and backing of imperial power. 

Despite these enduring practices however, the settler colonial paradigm has largely fallen into disuse. As a paradigm, it once served as a primary ideological and political framework for all Palestinian political factions and trends, and informed the intellectual work of committed academics and revolutionary scholars, both Palestinians and Jews.

The conference thus asks where and why the settler colonial paradigm was lost, both in scholarship on Palestine and in politics; how do current analyses and theoretical trends that have arisen in its place address present and historical realities? While acknowledging the creativity of these new interpretations, we must nonetheless ask: when exactly did Palestinian natives find themselves in a "post-colonial" condition? When did the ongoing struggle over land become a "post-conflict" situation? When did Israel become a "post-Zionist" society? And when did the fortification of Palestinian ghettos and reservations become "state-building"?

In outlining settler colonialism as a central paradigm from which to understand Palestine, this conference re-invigorates it as a tool by which to analyze the present situation. In doing so, it contests solutions which accommodate Zionism, and more significantly, builds settler colonialism as a political analysis that can embolden and inform a strategy of active, mutual, and principled Palestinian alignment with the Arab struggle for self-determination, and indigenous struggles in the US, Latin America, Oceania, and elsewhere.

Such an alignment would expand the tools available to Palestinians and their solidarity movement, and reconnect the struggle to its own history of anti-colonial internationalism. At its core, this internationalism asserts that the Palestinian struggle against Zionist settler colonialism can only be won when it is embedded within, and empowered by, the broader Arab movement for emancipation and the indigenous, anti-racist and anti-colonial movement--from Arizona to Auckland.

SOAS Palestine Society invites everyone to join us at what promises to be a significant intervention in Palestine activism and scholarship.

For over 30 years, SOAS Palestine Society has heightened awareness and understanding of the Palestinian people, their rights, culture, and struggle for self-determination, amongst students, faculty, staff, and the broader public. SOAS Palestine society aims to continuously push the frontiers of discourse in an effort to make provocative arguments and to stimulate debate and organizing for justice in Palestine through relevant conferences, and events ranging from the intellectual and political impact of Edward Said`s life and work (2004), international law and the Palestine question (2005), the economy of Palestine and its occupation (2006), the one state (2007), 60 Years of Nakba, 60 Years of Resistance (2009), and most recently, the Left in Palestine (2010).

For more information on the SOAS Palestine Society 7th annual conference, Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine: www.soaspalsoc.org

SOAS Palestine Society Organizing Collective is a group of committed students that has undertaken to organize annual academic conferences on Palestine since 2003.

 

[i] Patrick Wolfe, Settler Colonialism and the Transformation of Anthropology: The Politics and Poetics of an Ethnographic Event, Cassell, London, p. 163

[ii] Interview with Benny Morris, Survival of the Fittest, Haaretz, 9. January 2004, http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/php/art.php?aid=5412