Ministry of Education: Plan to Balance the Right to Education and the Duty of Shelter

The Ministry of Education announced that "the academic year began on September 15 in most Lebanese regions, while exceptional circumstances resulting from the continued use of several public schools as shelters for displaced residents prevented the start of in-person education in some areas at the same time."

The Ministry's media office stated in a press release: "From the beginning, the Ministry of Education and Higher Education placed the gradual return to in-person learning at the core of its plan for the academic year, committing to securing it for as many students as possible, including displaced students, whenever field conditions allowed. At the same time, the Ministry was keen not to return any school to its educational function at the expense of the right of displaced families to safe and decent shelter."

It continued: "Based on this balance between the right to education and the duty of shelter, work has been done on a plan to consolidate shelter centers, in cooperation between the Ministries of Social Affairs and Interior, relevant bodies and authorities, which allows for improving shelter conditions and services provided to displaced persons, while simultaneously vacating schools gradually and returning them to their primary function as educational institutions. Specifically in the Tyre region, where a large percentage of public schools were used as shelter centers, achieving this balance posed a fundamental challenge. Therefore, the Ministry of Education cooperated with the Governorate, relevant authorities, the Union of Municipalities of Tyre, emergency teams, organizations, and associations working on the ground, in order to find alternative centers and equip them to ensure decent conditions for displaced residents, while allowing the reopening of as many schools as possible for students in the region and displaced students."

It added: "In this context, the Ministry of Education placed part of its educational buildings at the disposal of the Emergency Committee to contribute to providing alternative places, facilitating the gradual evacuation of a number of public schools and their return to their educational function. Accordingly, the delay in the start of in-person education in a number of schools in Tyre was linked to the time required to secure appropriate alternatives and equip them, based on a clear decision not to evacuate any center before securing a decent alternative for the families residing there. In contrast, the Ministry continues to work on returning schools to in-person education successively, in line with its plan for gradual return, and its goal of reaching as many students as possible with in-person education."

The Ministry affirms that "responding to shelter needs is a shared national responsibility, undertaken by the central disaster management operations room with its various components, alongside ministries, administrations, local authorities, and relevant parties, and is not solely the responsibility of the Ministry of Education. Since the beginning of the war, the Ministry has borne a significant part of this national responsibility, by placing a large number of its schools, buildings, and educational institutions at the service of humanitarian response, and participating with its teams in field efforts to shelter the displaced. To this day, more than 70 official educational institutions are still being used for shelter purposes. The Ministry will continue its contribution to the national humanitarian effort, in parallel with its primary responsibility to protect the right of students to education and restore the regularity of the educational process."

It concluded: "The goal is not to choose between shelter and education, but to work together to secure both: protecting the dignity of displaced residents and ensuring decent conditions for them, while simultaneously returning schools gradually to their educational mission, so that as many of our children as possible can return to their classrooms and learn in person."