Students at the entrance to a school in Lebanon. (Credit: Hassan Assal)
The secretary general of Catholic schools, Father Youssef Nasr, announced on Thursday evening the suspension of the strike, which took place during a two-week end-of-year holiday, in these establishments and the resumption of classes from Monday, Jan. 8, after the Christmas break.
Speaking to L'Orient-Le Jour on Friday, he explained the decision, which was essentially aimed at "doing justice to retired and future retired private school teachers," against a backdrop of severe economic crisis since 2019 and the collapse of the Lebanese pound.
"It was not possible for retired teachers to continue to receive monthly pensions worth around $30 (between LL1.5 million and LL3 million) when they have served students for decades," Father Youssef Nasr stressed, accusing the state of having failed in its responsibility to make up the deficit in the pension fund.
The strike was called by the General Secretariat of Catholic Schools, the umbrella organization for private educational institutions, after Parliament passed a law on Dec. 15 that increases teachers' monthly pensions sixfold and requires private schools to pay the Teachers' Pension Fund 8 percent of each teacher's salary (compared with 6 percent previously), including dollar subsidies. For their part, teachers will have to pay into the fund 8 percent of their salary paid in lira (compared with 6 percent previously). Schools are also required to present a receipt from the Pension Fund proving that they have paid their contributions.
The law was initiated by Nehmé Mahfoud, president of the private school teachers' union, who spent a whole year lobbying politicians.
It should be noted that the Labor Code does not apply to both public and private school teachers.
The law was approved on Dec. 19 by the caretaker government, meeting amid the absence of a president. However, it has still not been published in the Official Journal. The text is accompanied by other legislation allowing the State to fund the private teachers' pension fund for one year to the tune of 750 billion LBP, rather than 650 billion as previously announced, while the fund feeds itself.
Contributions in dollars, a temporary measure
"For private institutions, finding the 750 billion is no easy task," said Father Nasr. In fact, contributions in lira make up some 400 billion. And the dollar contributions to teachers are only a "temporary measure, not included in their salaries, to enable them to live decently while the crisis passes." Not to mention the fact that many schools, particularly "the 400 free schools, cannot afford to pay teachers in dollars, and only survive on external aid."
At the heart of the Catholic school's decision to call off the strike announced on the eve of the Christmas vacation was the promise to study in greater depth the reservations expressed by the General Secretariat and on a larger scale by the Maronite Patriarchate. Maronite Patriarch Bechara Rai's call for dialogue at the end of December, and the creation of a committee chaired by outgoing Education Minister Abbas Halabi, enabled the committee to consider three options.
On Thursday, the committee, comprising the Director General of the Ministry of Education and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Pension Fund Imad Achkar, the head of the Teachers' Mutual Fund Georges Sakr, and the advisor to outgoing Education Minister Samih Maddah, handed in its report. "The first option was to apply the new legislation in full, with all its flaws, to the detriment of private schools' reserves," explained Father Nasr. Under the second option, "school contributions are unified on the basis of a $300 grant to teachers. But this option didn't take into account the fact that free schools don't pay teachers in dollars, and only survive thanks to external aid," he pointed out.
Hence the Catholic schools' proposal to consider a third option that doesn't involve an increase in school fees. "This third option is currently being studied, and should materialize in the implementation mechanisms," hopes Youssef Nasr. "But all this is only temporary until a new salary scale is adopted, as soon as the situation is less volatile," he believes.
One question remains unanswered, however. Will the Catholic schools decide to launch an appeal to overturn the law? The answer lies in Bkirki.