The school year began on September 15 in most parts of Lebanon, while exceptional circumstances resulting from the continued use of a number of public schools as shelters for displaced families prevented in-person classes from starting on the same date in some areas.
From the outset, the Ministry of Education and Higher Education placed the gradual return to in-person learning at the heart of its plan for the school year and committed to making it available to the largest possible number of students, including displaced students, whenever field conditions allowed. At the same time, the Ministry was careful to ensure that no school would be returned to its educational function at the expense of displaced families’ right to safe and adequate shelter.
Based on this balance between the right to education and the duty to provide shelter, work began on a plan to consolidate shelter centers, in cooperation with the Ministries of Social Affairs and Interior, as well as relevant bodies and stakeholders. The plan aims to improve shelter conditions and services provided to displaced people while gradually vacating schools and restoring them to their primary function as educational institutions.
In the Tyre area in particular, where a large proportion of public schools were being used as shelters, achieving this balance posed a major challenge. The Ministry of Education therefore cooperated with the governorate, relevant authorities, the Union of Tyre Municipalities, emergency teams, organizations, and associations operating on the ground to identify and equip alternative shelters that would provide decent conditions for displaced families, while allowing the largest possible number of schools to reopen to students from the area as well as displaced students.
Within this framework, the Ministry of Education made some of its educational buildings available to the Emergency Committee to help provide alternative accommodation, thereby facilitating the gradual evacuation of a number of public schools and their return to their educational function.
Accordingly, the delay in launching in-person education at a number of schools in Tyre was linked to the time required to secure and prepare suitable alternatives, based on a clear decision not to evacuate any shelter before providing an adequate alternative for the families staying there. At the same time, the Ministry continues to work on gradually restoring in-person classes in schools, in line with its phased return plan and its goal of extending in-person education to the largest possible number of students.
In this context, the Ministry of Education stresses that responding to shelter needs is a shared national responsibility undertaken by the Central Disaster Risk Management Operations Room and its various components, alongside ministries, public administrations, local authorities, and other relevant parties. It is not the responsibility of the Ministry of Education alone.
Since the beginning of the war, the Ministry has assumed a significant share of this national responsibility by making a large number of its schools, buildings, and educational institutions available for the humanitarian response, while its teams have also participated in field efforts to shelter displaced people.
To this day, more than 70 public educational institutions remain in use as shelters. The Ministry will continue contributing to the national humanitarian effort while simultaneously fulfilling its core responsibility of protecting students’ right to education and restoring the regular functioning of the education system.
The goal is not to choose between shelter and education, but to work collectively to secure both: protecting the dignity of displaced families and ensuring adequate living conditions for them, while gradually restoring schools to their educational mission so that the largest possible number of our children can return to their classrooms and resume in-person learning.