Search
Search

Education

Children of Lebanese mothers and non-Lebanese fathers continue to face hurdles in education

Children of Lebanese mothers and non-Lebanese fathers continue to face hurdles in education

Children of Lebanese mothers and non-Lebanese fathers are confronted with challenges to access of education. (Credit: Marc Fayad)

BEIRUT — Earlier this month, the administration of the public Lebanese University issued a decision requiring that foreign students pay their tuition fees in cash dollars at the official exchange rate.

While Lebanese nationals and Syrians and Palestinians with legal residency in Lebanon would continue to pay in lira, students whose mothers are Lebanese and fathers are not were not exempt, meaning they would have to pay in dollars at the same rate as foreigners.

Lebanese students currently pay a base tuition fee of ​​LL295,000 per year. Prior to this year, non-Lebanese students had paid LL1 million, but with the new decision, their basic tuition fees would be $800, excluding any additional expenses such as insurance.

Under Lebanese law, mothers generally cannot pass on their citizenship to their children; while the children of Lebanese men married to non-Lebanese women receive Lebanese citizenship, the children of Lebanese women married to foreigners do not.

After an outcry from students and parents, on Oct. 12, five days after the initial announcement, the university reversed course and announced that the children of Lebanese mothers would pay tuition in lira at the official exchange rate.

While the university’s reversal solved one issue in access to education, children of Lebanese mothers and non-Lebanese fathers continue to face hurdles in registering for public primary and secondary schools.

Although Lebanese children have mandatory access to free primary and secondary education, children whose sole Lebanese parent is their mother are frequently required to wait until all students holding Lebanese citizenship have registered before they can enroll in public school.

The issue, which comes up every year, has been exacerbated by increased pressures on the public school system this year. While official registration statistics for the 2021-22 school year are not yet available, a recent United Nations report estimated that some 100,000- 120,000 students have transferred from private to public schools between 2019-20 and the current school year.

Typically, the education minister will issue an official decree on an annual basis to public schools and universities that addresses the issue of enrollment for children of Lebanese mothers and foreign fathers.

According to Manal Hdaife, a member of the Public Primary Schools Teachers League, Education Minister Abbas Halabi did not issue the decree this year. However, she said, he informally told the league during their meetings to give priority to Lebanese students and then to focus on children of Lebanese mothers and foreign fathers.

This has forced some parents of non-Lebanese children to enroll their kids in private schools to ensure a spot, but many are not able to afford private school fees.

Leila Harake, who was married to an Egyptian man, is a mother of two daughters, one in the fourth grade and the other a university student.

Even before the current crisis, Harake told L’Orient Today, she had sometimes run into problems registering her older daughter in the local public school due to overcrowding.

When she tried to register her younger daughter in the local public school in Ghobeiry this year, the school staff informed her that her daughter would have to enroll in the so-called “second shift,” afternoon classes set aside for Syrian refugees and foreigners, instead of in the regular classes with Lebanese students that she had been attending in past years.

“I wanted her to be with her friends and I did not want her to feel that she is different,” Harake said.

After going back and forth with the school administration for a week, her daughter was eventually granted a spot in the morning shift.

Moustafa Shaar, president of the “Jinsiyati Karamati” (“My Nationality is My Dignity”) campaign, which has been lobbying for the right of Lebanese women to transfer their nationality to their children, told L’Orient Today that every year many Lebanese mothers who are married to men from different nationalities struggle to put their children in public schools.

“Although during some years the education minister would decide to issue a decree asking schools to allow children whose mothers are Lebanese to be treated and registered just like Lebanese students, many schools still discriminate and would still ignore the ministry’s decision,” he said.

School staff acknowledged that the current policy leaves some families in a difficult position.

“We have been asked to apply this priority [giving Lebanese students spots] during this year’s registration period,” Hdaife told L’Orient Today, noting that the administrations were worried about the expected influx of students transferring from private schools to public ones after their parents found themselves no longer able to afford private school fees.

Yet, “many parents have actually transferred back to private schools because, with the public school teachers constantly on strike,” Hdaife said, adding that “many parents thought that public schools wouldn’t open this year and were actually worried that their students might miss this academic year.”

As a result, she said, “We were able to help many students whose mothers are Lebanese and fathers aren’t, but this is not enough and many still need a space.”

Nisrine Chahine, the head of the public sector contract teachers’ committee, told L’Orient Today that she regards the policy of keeping non-Lebanese children of Lebanese mothers waiting until all other children have had a chance to enroll as “a discrimination that we really do not accept at our schools.”

“We really want to prioritize for all students the education they need for a better future, and we do not want to set priorities based on racial preferences,” she said.

The issue of educational access is just one of many problems families face as a result of Lebanon’s nationality law, advocates said.

“The present legislation discriminates against women who marry foreigners, as well as their children and husbands, by denying citizenship to the children and spouses,” feminist activist Abir Chebaro L’Orient Today. “Almost every element of the children's and spouses' life is affected by the legislation, including legal residency and access to a job, education, and social assistance.”

Since Lebanese women cannot pass their nationality to their foreign spouses or children, both must apply for a renewed residency permit every three years.

In educational matters, students whose mothers are Lebanese while fathers are not have always been asked to pay more than what Lebanese students pay, “but the additional fees have always been affordable and minor,” Harake said.

So, like many other mothers, she was shocked by the Lebanese University’s Oct. 7 announcement that her family would have to pay tuition in dollars. Officials said that the university’s strained budget had pushed it to look for “sources of funding in foreign currency to ensure our continued operation."

Harake said of her 22-year-old daughter, now a student at the Lebanese University, “My daughter was two years late to graduate from [secondary] school, not because she is a failure, but simply because I was a Lebanese mother married to a foreign father, and most importantly because her own government does not give her Lebanese nationality.”

Upon seeing the university’s tuition decision, she said, she was “devastated.”

“I told myself that the Lebanese institutions always find a way to obstruct my daughter, and many students like her, from having an education,” she said.

Although the decision was later reversed, Maryam Mohamad, a Lebanese University student whose mother is Lebanese and father is not, told L’Orient Today that the tuition issue was just one in a string of barriers placed in the way of young people like her.

“It is already hard for us once we graduate to become part of the syndicates that are under our industries, and they are also now making our education unattainable,” she said. 

BEIRUT — Earlier this month, the administration of the public Lebanese University issued a decision requiring that foreign students pay their tuition fees in cash dollars at the official exchange rate. While Lebanese nationals and Syrians and Palestinians with legal residency in Lebanon would continue to pay in lira, students whose mothers are Lebanese and fathers are not were not exempt,...