In Crisis-Struck Lebanon, School Year Is Gripped by Chaos

In Crisis-Struck Lebanon, School Year Is Gripped by Chaos

This fall, the academic year in Lebanon is gripped by the same chaos that has overwhelmed everything else in the country in its financial and economic meltdown.

Thousands of teachers are on strike, demanding salary adjustments to cope with hyperinflation and the currency's free-fall. A month's pay is now barely enough to fill a vehicle's gas tank twice.

With severe fuel shortages, it is not even certain they can fill up. School buses are no longer a given, and heating for classes in the cold winter months is far from guaranteed.

The start of school has been postponed several times as the cash-strapped government negotiates with the teachers' union for an adjustment package estimated at about $500 million.

As a result, while some private schools have begun classes, most of Lebanon's 1.2 million students still don't know when they will go back to school. Meanwhile, teachers have been quitting in droves, looking for better opportunities abroad.

Many fear not just a missed academic year, but a lost generation in a country that prided itself in competing globally with the number of scientists and engineers it graduated.

Schools have already been disrupted the past two years by a series of events — protests starting in late 2019