SCHOOL/ Avsi: Why, in Lebanon, we are betting everything on the public schools

The supermarkets are full of backpacks, notebooks of all shapes and sizes, and colored Bic pens for every pocket, while billboards on the street compete to offer the best school computer for a few hundred dollars and show the smiling face of a child who holds one proudly in his hand. One could say that there are no differences between Beirut and the most advanced Western countries, but in the Country of Cedars, things then go a little differently.

In Lebanon, one cannot speak of a school system. One must always distinguish between private and public schools, and therefore, between those who one day will direct multinational corporations around the world (like the general manager of Chrysler-Lancia appointed by Marchionne last summer) and those who will barely be able to sign a check with an unsteady hand.

The Lebanese public school system is like an increasingly rusty piece of scrap metal, made up of poorly paid teachers (and therefore almost all distracted by a second job) and bare, abandoned classrooms. The schools are almost free, but they are attended only by those who really have no alternative. Everyone, every single parent with school-age children, lives in search of a private school that they can afford given their salaries.

Historically, the first Lebanese private schools were set up by Christian religious congregations and, in this multi-faith country, this meant that even elite Muslims studied under priests and nuns. Today there are good schools that are Sunni, Shiite, Orthodox, and so on. The great dividing line that they all share is money: they cost from 500/600 dollars to 10/15 thousand dollars a year in tuition (the average Lebanese salary is around 600 dollars per month). At the highest levels, structured based on the American and French education systems, the passage to university is not complicated and many of the lucky students end their academic careers with doctorates in Europe or the United States.

Instead, the challenge of Lebanon today is centered on those who cannot afford to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars for the "scholastic life" of their children, and they are the majority. Everyone has noticed: from the new Lebanese government to the donors, led by the European Union.