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EDUCATION

Teachers mount ‘day of anger’ over rapidly declining value of pay

Teachers mount ‘day of anger’ over rapidly declining value of pay

Teachers demonstrate in front of the Education Ministry in Beirut on Wednesday. (Credit: Mohammad Yassine/OLJ)

BEIRUT — Hundreds of teachers gathered in front of the Education Ministry in Beirut’s UNESCO Palace on Wednesday to protest the steeply deteriorating value of their salaries as Lebanon faces its worst financial crisis since the Civil War.

Here’s what we know:

    • Teachers participating in the protest, called by teachers’ unions, demanded increased salaries, transportation stipends and improved medical coverage, among other stipulations.

    • If their demands are not met, the teachers threatened to boycott the upcoming school year, which is set to begin on Sept. 27 for public schools and include in-classroom teaching.

    • The resumption of face-to-face classes is already at risk by the crises facing Lebanon, including the COVID-19 pandemic and the economic catastrophe brought on by the financial system’s collapse.

    • Marlène Rizk, a private school teacher taking part in the protest, denounced “the collapse of teachers’ salaries, which only allows them to last a week” given stubbornly high inflation in the country.

    • The rapidly evolving realities of Lebanon’s economic crisis, along with the COVID-19 pandemic, are leaving teachers, parents and students in an impossible position and putting many children at risk of losing out on education for a third consecutive year.

    • “With 70 percent of students educated in fee-paying institutions, a large number of Lebanese families face the decision about whether to continue in their existing schools or to shift to more cost-effective alternatives. A large number of these transfers threatens to have a long-term impact on the shape and scale of national education provision,” according to the Center for Educational Research and Development.

BEIRUT — Hundreds of teachers gathered in front of the Education Ministry in Beirut’s UNESCO Palace on Wednesday to protest the steeply deteriorating value of their salaries as Lebanon faces its worst financial crisis since the Civil War.Here’s what we know:    • Teachers participating in the protest, called by teachers’ unions, demanded increased salaries, transportation...