Against every barrier: building future platforms of education

In spite of undeniable realities of human capital erosion and structural weakening as well as moral and financial bankruptcy of the increasingly unequal education sector, the narrow but extremely important education segment of Lebanon’s top universities represents a counterfactual to the defeatist sentiment that local education is desolate and degraded beyond short or medium term perspectives of recovery. Moreover, examples of resilience in crisis, such as the example of the American University of Beirut (AUB) – one of the region’s highest reputed academic institutions, validate the notion that Lebanon cannot be fully comprehended when approached as a naturally diverse but tiny territory (0.002 percent of the world’s surface) with a socially diverse but micro-sized population (estimated 0.07 percent of world population), 90 percent dysfunctional institutions, and an organizationally 99 percent deficient polity. Rather, with the studious Lebanon of ardent learning and the literary Lebanon of prophets and poets at the