The Educational Gap

The matter is not limited to the repercussions of the Corona crisis on the Palestinian community in Lebanon; but it was preceded before that by the impact on education in UNRWA schools with closure due to the Lebanese popular movement and before that, the Palestinian movement in protest of the Minster of Labor’s decision. This means that the result will be tripled. Suppose all societies in the world have been affected by education due to the Corona pandemic. This is understood from the discussion that is taking place at the level of even the major countries. In that case, the impact on the Palestinians in Lebanon will naturally be tremendous and great.

Once again, we return to the patterns of thinking, behavior, and action about this problem, or more accurately, patterns of non-thinking, and inaction, whether at the level of the UNRWA, which we put a thousand question marks about its vitality or taking a zero-file position. Or at the level of the Palestinian administration, which is to blame considering that this is a matter of higher Palestinian interest, and therefore the administration was supposed to pay attention to the risks caused by the growing educational gap between the level of learning and the current level of learning and the level of learning and education assumed in the event if the situation was normal.

Despite our limited resources, we tried to sound the alarm. Still, there was no response. Today, since the results are firmly established, in the sense that the losses are too significant to count, the debate and thinking must focus on how students can be compensated for the lack of information? How to deal with the decline in the educational level? How can we deal with educational failure and the number of failures? 

The preliminary results include increasing the unemployed to a new rate, a new proportion of young people to unskilled labor, child labor, and disguised unemployment. But the strategic impact will be in increasing the rate of migration, early marriage, addiction to smoking and drugs, increase in extreme tendencies and a tendency towards violence, the formation of low-structure families, and an increase in extreme poverty. In short, the result will be in the production of passive individuals.

The above questions must be drawn by everyone participating in the Palestinian problem in Lebanon, from UNRWA to political frameworks and references, unions and sectoral organizations (students, teachers), intellectuals, the, international and regional organizations, civil society organizations, donors, and popular frameworks. This matter is the responsibility of all worried and keen Palestinians.