The impact of Lebanon’s economic woes on schools and parents

ENAR

Lebanon’s fee paying private schools—which cater to 52.6 percent of the student body in Lebanon or 564,446 students out of 1,073,141 as per the 2018-2019 statistical bulletin compiled by the Center for Educational Research and Development—are in grave danger of falling victim to the ongoing economic crisis plaguing the country. As Executive reported back in August 2019, administrations of private schools had been struggling to accommodate the 40 percent increase in each teacher’s salary—mandated by Law 46 (2017) for public sector employees and applied by private institutions—in an environment where parents were already struggling financially and could not bear a hefty increase in tuition fees. Given that this was the case before the salary cuts, layoffs, banking restrictions, and increased price of consumer goods witnessed since the last quarter of 2019 to date, as a result of the economic and now coronavirus crises, the situation for parents today and therefore