Strike keeps Lebanon's public schools closed

STORY: School teacher Claude Koteich and her children should have all been back to school weeks ago.

But a crisis in Lebanon's education sector has left them lounging around at home.

Lebanon's three-year financial meltdown has severely devalued the country's pound, pushing 80% of the population into poverty, and gutting public services including water and electricity.

It has also left public schools closed so far this academic year, with teachers waging an open-ended strike over their severely devalued salaries.

"We used to get a salary high enough that I could afford to put them (my kids) in private school."

From a monthly salary that was once about $3,000, Koteich now earns the equivalent of $100 – forcing her to make a tough choice last summer.

"When we reached this current period where our situation receded that much as public high school teachers, I simply decided to move them (my kids) to public schools with me - like the students I am teaching and other people in Lebanon."

Lebanon's education system has long been heavily reliant on private schools, which hosted almost 60% of the country's 1.25 million students, according to the Ministry of Higher Education.

However, in the 2020-2021 school year alone, the financial strain on households meant around 55,000 students transitioned from private to public schools, according to the World Bank.

But public education has been historically underfunded, with the government earmarking less than 2% of GDP to education in 2020, the World Bank says.

That's one of the lowest rates in the Middle East and North Africa.

The head of the United Nations' children agency in Lebanon told Reuters that about a third of children in the country are not attending school.

Adding that worrying numbers are being employed, or that girls are getting into early child marriage.

Some hope schools will re-open in October, though the government hasn't announced anything.

So as their former classmates don their private school uniforms, Koteich and her two children still have no clear idea when they will return.