The education sector resumes the academic year 2022 - 2023, severely crippled. The accumulated problems within both public and private education threaten to cause a forced paralysis, even if schools open their doors with warnings or threats after the holiday break. The issue is not limited to the collapse in wages and salaries but extends to the complete blockage of any solutions that could restore even a small portion of teachers' rights.
The erosion of wages is enormous. In the official schools, the average salary for teachers remains below 6 million Lira, despite its doubling in the 2022 budget. A teacher with educational qualifications and 10 years of actual service (Grade 21) does not exceed a base salary of 1.9 million Lira. Meanwhile, a teacher with a university degree and 20 years of actual service (Grade 16) earns no more than 1.6 million Lira. Given that 60% of teachers hold university degrees, the average monthly wage does not exceed 1.8 million Lira. As a result, the average income in foreign currency has dropped from around 1200 dollars to approximately 127 dollars, based on an exchange rate of 42500 Lira. This means the purchasing power of their monthly wages has lost nearly 10 times its actual value.
The problem is that the proportion of teachers on permanent contracts does not exceed 30% of the teaching staff in official schools, while 70% are contracted at meager wages, recently modified to 100,000 Lira per hour. The number of teaching hours ranges from four hours (400,000 Lira) to twenty hours (2 million Lira) per week. They do not receive a transport allowance of 95,000 Lira per day for a maximum of three days a week unless they commit to at least three days of actual presence at school. Their annual wages, not paid monthly or even quarterly, undergo severe erosion due to the continuous decline in the exchange rate.
Partial Solutions... and Just Passing Time
The proposed solutions to improve their income are not only considered inadequate and questionable in credibility but also undermine education and adversely affect Lebanon's reputation, its economic future, and the fate of rising generations. The dollar incentives resulting from grants of 60 million dollars will provide teachers with no more than 5 dollars daily, which might be paid in Lira based on the Sayrafa platform (currently 38,000 Lira). The more concerning aspect is that this will be paired with allowing teaching to occur two to three days a week. In this case, "we are no longer talking about school education," according to educational researcher Ni'ma Ni'ma, but rather time-wasting operations that do not align with the indicator of the "effectiveness of the school year," known as "educational effectiveness." This indicator is calculated based on living conditions, teaching hours, and attendance rates. Furthermore, the educational effectiveness index is a fundamental measure of the education level and its adequacy in the country and the skills it helps to develop. This index was estimated at 6.3 out of 12 years during the golden days before the crisis erupted in 2019, meaning that of 12 years, around 6 years were effectively educational. Currently, after three years of the crisis, it is likely that the effectiveness of education has declined to below 4 out of 12. It had already lost 50 school days per year since 2014, as teaching days were reduced from around 180, which aligns with the global average, to 120, intending to reduce the expenses of contractors and transportation allowances for permanent staff.
Economic Loss
The hidden danger resulting from the quantitative and qualitative hits to the education sector reflects the loss of millions of dollars for the economy in the future. "Each additional year of education boosts an individual's income by 10,000 dollars over a lifetime, according to World Bank estimates," says Ni'ma. "This means that someone who completes the first secondary year increases their lifetime income by 10,000 dollars compared to someone who stops in the 9th grade."
Private Schools Are Not in a Better Situation
Regarding private schools, the situation is no better and may even be worse. "Teachers are in a pitiful state, and the prime minister is directly concerned with improving their situation through the approval of legislative unity with the public sector abroad," says Ni'ma Mahfoud, head of the private education teachers' syndicate. "As if there is no urgency in a collapsing country where the actual dollar in markets, based on which prices are set, approaches 50,000 Lira." According to Mahfoud, "Teachers' demands in the private sector boil down to four points, not related to improving their material situation, but about surviving. Two of these points depend on negotiations that the Minister of Education will conduct with the Governor of the Central Bank, which are:
- Acceptance of banks to cash the end-of-service checks for retired teachers or at least allow them to be deposited into accounts.
- Allowing the conversion of salaries averaging between 2 and 3 million to dollars based on the Sayrafa platform, aligned with the conversion of salaries for public sector teachers, which have been multiplied by 3 on this basis.
The remaining two points are:
- Respecting legislative unity between the public and private sectors, which allows for tripling the salaries of private education teachers.
- Funding the pension fund.
These two items were included in a bill prepared by former Minister Ziyad Baroud, which President Mikati must approve and carry to the Parliament for legislation," says Mahfoud. "However, in case of refusal, we will call the general assemblies across Lebanon to convene and vote on starting movements." Regarding the position of the syndicate in case of delay, Mahfoud believes that "the Parliament will not remain forever as an electoral body; it cannot be pressured to pass laws. However, if the law is not passed immediately as the Parliament turns into a legislative body, a strike will become legitimate."
The Position of Private Schools
What private education teachers are demanding in terms of tripling salaries like those in official schools is not opposed by private schools. "However, it may pose a risk to the social assistance in dollars that teachers receive," says Father Youssef Nasr, Secretary-General of Catholic Schools. "Tripling salaries is contingent upon parents' ability to pay tuition fees, in addition to funding support funds in dollars. After all, parents are the primary funders." According to Father Nasr, "There is a concern about the inability to sustain the system established since the beginning of the current school year, which aims to support teachers’ salaries by providing them with part of their wages in dollars if a salary increase is legislated."
Some teachers in the private sector see that tripling salaries may be fairer than receiving a portion in dollars, especially as the matter is not obligatory, and many schools do not apply it. According to Father Nasr, this increase requires considering three factors:
- The law for tripling salaries was enacted in the budget for the year 2022 only, and there are no updates regarding this increase in the budget for 2023.
- The approved increase does not enter into the base salary and is constrained by a ceiling of 12 million Lira.
- The uncertain fate of the dollar’s exchange rate, as any increase would diminish the value of the increase in Lira.
Father Nasr hinted through these three elements that providing part of the salaries in dollars is fairer and that it would be challenging to continue paying in dollars if tripling salaries were legislated. Therefore, resolving the issue of legislative unity with the public sector might open broad avenues for new problems between teachers and school administrations.
This is perhaps the reality of crises that are managed in a makeshift manner. Just as one problem seems to be addressed, another emerges, rendering the first a mere detail. As long as there is no fundamental solution to the multiple exchange rates, the governance of the education sector, serious oversight of ministry operations, and monitoring of grant expenditure, the door to crises will remain wide open.
