Lebanon on Monday began what authorities called a “plan for the gradual resumption of teaching”, allowing some children to return to school for the first time since public schools suspended classes in early March as war forced them to become temporary shelters.
More than 140,000 of the 1 million Lebanese displaced by Israeli attacks have taken refuge in over 600 schools across the country, about half of them children, Polish Radio’s IAR news agency reported. Those schools will offer only remote learning.
Even children staying with relatives or in rented apartments face major obstacles, including lack of study space, limited access to computers or tablets, overloaded internet connections and the psychological strain of war.
In private schools, including in areas considered relatively safe, the return to classrooms has also been difficult. Some parents want in-person learning restored.
“Some don’t like remote learning, because children, especially younger ones, sit at home all day and get bored. So it’s better for them to go to school and learn”, said Hilda, a mother of three from Beirut.
She said she could not imagine sending her own children back.
“The school my children attend is in relatively safe Baabda, but right next door, in Hadath, there is war”, she said. “What if there is a similar mistake as in Iran and a school here is bombed too?”
Hilda said she also feared a repeat of the chaos of the previous war, which ended less than a year and a half ago.
“Every time Israel announced attacks near Saint Therese Hospital in Hadath, the school called parents to come immediately and pick up their children”, she said. “In an area where bombing could happen at any moment, there was traffic for 20 to 30 minutes. It was madness”.
The education ministry is expected to announce in two weeks what will happen with state exams, Lebanon’s equivalent of final secondary school exams.
UNICEF calculated that since the war began on March 2, enough children have been wounded each day in Lebanon to fill one classroom. So far, 118 children have been killed.
(jh)
Source: Polish Radio