Flight of Schoolchildren from Private to Public Schools

It is great news, and while the reasons are financial, it is never too late.

With the collapse of the Lebanese Lira, private (virtually all religious) schools have become too expensive.

Why is it great news? Because the private sector has fought tooth and nail any development and improvement of the public educational system. 

Private schools are basically religious schools affiliated with the religious sects that control every facet of life in Lebanon. Without a religion declared at your birth, you will have no existence as far as the Lebanese State is concerned. The religious sects are like concentration camps in which are herded willy-nilly citizens who have no choice in the matter. Inter-religious marriages continue to face challenges and generally have to be sealed abroad in civil, not religious, proceedings (e.g. in nearby Cyprus). 

Private schools in Lebanon take money from the State to fund their activities, instead of channeling that money to fix public schools. Now that the Lebanese Lira has collapsed, these religious schools (run by nuns and priests for the Christians, and by sheikhs and imams for the Muslims) have to raise their tuition, and oppose any salary increases demanded by their teachers.

In this rigid centralized government, I have no idea why the State, which claims to have a liberal economy, has to tell private schools what to do, what the curriculum is, how much to pay their teachers, and pay them money (supposedly to teach poor children! How Christian!). The reason is because the State has agreed to be at the mercy of the religious establishments, and defers to them in many areas. Typical of vertically stratified societies (banana republics, though I prefer in the Lebanese case to refer to it as a lemon republic) run by wealthy oligarchs and tribal families who sit at the top of the pyramid, while everyone else bottom-feeds from the crumbs. Lebanon is truly like France was in the 1750s: Colluding nobles, religious establishments, and the military, shafting the middle class and the poor every which way you look at it. The difference is that the Lebanese people have no collective sense to mount a serious revolution. They bask in the comfort of their own little sectarian concentration camp.

Funny, in a country where the majority of children are taught in religious schools, many of these children grow up to be corrupt, criminal, warmongering militiamen, disrespectful of their fellow citizens of the "other" religion or sect, drive like maniacs and jeopardize the lives of others, love money above all else, throw garbage everywhere, go to hunting safaris and leave no wild bird or animal alive - apparently they are taught by priests, nuns, sheikhs and the like that God gave man dominion and life-and-death decisions over all other forms of life. All of this explains why the environment is in such sad state of affairs in Lebanon. Soon, the migratory bird season will begin, and all manner of thugs and hoodlums pretending to be professional marksmen will venture into the wild in their boosted 4-wheel drives - in a cheap Hollywood movie imitation - and shoot at anything that moves, and worst of all, they leave mounds of empty plastic cartridges in the woods right where they shot them. Cleaning up after themselves is not what Sister Mary-Archangel or Father Roufayel taught them; instead they told them that the African maid their parents have (and cannot afford her, but it is a status symbol, you see) will always clean after them. 

Not only schools but universities follow the same patterns. Every religious denomination has its own private university, while State universities are in complete disrepair and disarray, managed by political appointees whose merit is no more than their religious affiliation and political background. 

Despite the difficult moment - it seems Lebanon wallows in tragedy and self-mutilation because of a difference in belief in God and his prophets and saints - I am thrilled to see a massive migration of schoolchildren from the private to the public. Perhaps, it will instill a sense of pride to be only Lebanese, and not Protestant or Catholic or Sunni or Shiite Lebanese. Perhaps this will force the government to stop giving taxpayer money to the religious educational cartels and instead fund its own national schools and universities.