The Minister of Education and Higher Education in the caretaker government, Dr. Abbas Halabi, met with his Qatari counterpart, Dr. Buthaina Al-Nuaimi, on the sidelines of the education transformation summit organized by UNESCO in Paris.
Halabi began the meeting by expressing gratitude to Qatar, its Emir, government, and people, for their continuous support for Lebanon, especially after the Beirut port explosion, and for their efforts in restoring many schools and educational institutions.
He discussed "the challenges he faced in ensuring the continuation of in-person education," explaining "the preparations for the summer school, which he considers very essential to help students recover some of the learning losses due to the forced interruption of in-person education during the spread of the COVID-19 virus."
He confirmed "the difficulty in returning to schools at the beginning of the upcoming academic year, amid the collapse of the Lebanese currency's value against the US dollar," stating: "The price of a canister of gasoline has become equal to the minimum wage."
The Qatari minister expressed her "understanding of the Lebanese situation and the delicacy of the circumstances," emphasizing "the importance of education in Lebanon and working to meet Lebanon's request through an official letter from the Ministry of Education to the Qatar Fund for Development, considering that education is a right for all children present on Lebanese territory and around the world."
As part of the preparatory activities at the summit organized by UNESCO in Paris, Halabi participated in a roundtable discussion for ministers on early childhood, believing that education transformation should include early childhood as a foundational phase for all stages of education, in order to achieve the fourth goal of the Sustainable Development Goals, in preparation for an international conference scheduled to be held in Uzbekistan next November, addressing the topic of early childhood.
