Improving education for Lebanese children and refugee children from Syria

Context

Lebanese schools open in two shifts each day to give Lebanese children and Syrian refugee children access to education. However, the infrastructure of public schools is not designed to deal with this additional load.

Schools also had to close for more than two years due to the pandemic, ongoing teacher strikes and supply shortages. As there was a lack of digital resources, hybrid lessons only took place to a very limited extent.

In view of the worsening economic situation, more and more pupils are switching from private to public schools. However, they are barely able to accommodate new pupils and at the same time maintain school operations with a lack of water, electricity and internet supply.

Objective

Access to education has improved for Lebanese children and Syrian refugee children in the host communities.

Approach

In order to improve the school conditions for Lebanese children and Syrian children with a refugee background in the host communities, the programme focuses on the following topics:

• Promoting facility management (FM) to maintain school buildings and educational facilities, and to reduce operating costs.
• Creating green schools through ecological school concepts and improve environmental awareness with the help of green outdoor learning areas and environmental protection measures.
• Promoting digitalisation via a blended learning solution that enables offline access to the Lebanese curriculum and extracurricular activities.
• Supporting healthy eating by providing healthy snacks and promoting healthy eating and eating habits. As part of the programme, Saj flatbread stations are operated in cooperation with local agricultural associations.

The project is working together with the Lebanese Centre for Energy Conservation (LCEC), Lebanese Alternative Learning (LAL), Teach for Lebanon (TFL) and Fairtrade Lebanon (FTL).

Last update: December 2023