In a classroom at a high school converted into a shelter for displaced people in Beirut, Ahmad Melhem tries his best to follow a pre-recorded lesson on his tablet. Like hundreds of thousands of Lebanese students, he is deprived of school due to the war.
“We are trying, with the means at hand, to continue studying to fulfill our dreams,” explains this 17-year-old to AFP, while some distance learning classes have resumed.
With his family, they had to flee the southern suburb of Beirut, which has been heavily bombed by the Israeli army since Lebanon entered the war on March 2, when Hezbollah began firing rockets at Israel to avenge the assassination of the Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei on the first day of the American-Israeli offensive against Iran on February 28.
Along with other families, they found refuge in this classroom at the Abdel Kader high school, in the heart of the capital.
“We took risks to go get our school books,” Ahmad Melhem recounts, as Israeli strikes are daily in the southern suburb, expressing his desire to finish high school at all costs.
In total, nearly 500,000 students have had to stop attending classes since March 2, according to UNICEF; about 350 public schools have been turned into shelters, and educational institutions in neighborhoods and towns bombed by Israel have closed indefinitely.
Israeli strikes have killed more than 1,100 people, including 122 children, and displaced over one million people, according to Lebanese authorities.
In the classroom where mattresses and blankets are spread out, Ahmad, who hopes to study engineering in the future, has set up a corner with his books and a computer screen, but he does not have internet access.
His private school in the southern suburb of Beirut eventually resumed distance learning two weeks after the start of the war, with adjustments: optional subjects remain suspended, and classes are shorter.
An NGO installed internet connection in the courtyard, filled with children playing and adults chatting around hookahs, but Ahmad finds it difficult to concentrate.
“Group work and scientific projects are missing,” confesses the student, describing in-person classes as “more stimulating.”
His mother, Amira Salameh, 41, tries to help her eight-year-old son follow online school as well.
“If I leave him alone, he starts daydreaming,” she says. “The war has destroyed everything, education is the only thing left for my children.”
UNICEF is particularly concerned about high school students like Ahmad who need to take the baccalaureate exam this year, fearing they may not be able to join university next year.
Another concern is the possible dropout of girls and adolescents due to the threat of “forced marriages,” explains the director of education at UNICEF in Lebanon, Atif Ratique.
In a vocational high school in the northern suburb of Beirut, Dekwaneh, 17-year-old Aya Zahran spends her days “cooking and working to make the place livable” after fleeing the southern suburb with her family.
“We only have one phone that we share with my brothers and sisters” to attend online classes, and often the links sent by the public school do not work, says the teenager.
This highlights the lack of resources of these public schools, which are unable to provide distance learning, and the “digital divide” among students, especially those in the southern part of the country, most affected by the war, according to Mr. Rafique.
These shortcomings have led the Ministry of Education and UNICEF to launch an online platform of pre-recorded classes. A phone support service where students can reach a teacher without needing internet connection has also been set up by UNICEF and a Lebanese NGO.
“My children are excellent students, I don’t want them to quit school like we did when we were children,” proclaims Nassima Ismael, displaced from the east of the country, recalling her own childhood during the civil war (1975-1990).
