Analysis

Plugged In, Left Out: Lebanon’s Digital Learning Trap

Tech solutions risk worsening inequities at public schools

December 31, 2024

Executive Summary 

Lebanon’s education system is unravelling. Years of economic collapse, political paralysis, and devastating events like the Beirut Port explosion have left public schools hollowed out and underfunded. Now, in the aftermath of war, thousands of students face yet another crisis—classrooms shuttered, schools converted into shelters, and learning indefinitely stalled. A generation stands on the brink of being lost, as education becomes collateral damage in Lebanon’s endless state of emergency. 

In response, policymakers are pushing digital learning as a quick fix—a shiny bandage over a festering wound. But this reliance on technology is a cop-out. It sidesteps the difficult work of reforming Lebanon’s crumbling public education system. Digital tools have a role to play, but they are no substitute for the fundamentals: safe classrooms, trained teachers, and a curriculum that prepares students for the future. Without addressing these core issues, digital learning risks becoming another mirage in the desert of Lebanon’s education crisis. 

This paper reveals the stark inequalities that digital initiatives often conceal—and, in many cases, deepen. While private schools quickly adapted to online learning during the pandemic, public schools floundered. Over half of vulnerable households lack internet access, and even fewer have reliable electricity or devices. Teachers, already undertrained and underpaid, were left scrambling to deliver lessons through WhatsApp. Refugee children, with dropout rates exceeding 70 percent, are being pushed even further to the margins. 

Lebanon’s push for digital learning reflects a broader trend of outsourcing public services to international donors and NGOs. While these actors may provide temporary relief, they cannot replace the state’s role in guaranteeing access to quality education. Reliance on digital platforms masks deeper structural inequalities, prioritising quick wins over the hard, necessary work of systemic reform. 

We argue that Lebanon’s education crisis demands more than stopgap solutions. Policymakers must confront the hard truths: rebuilding the public education system is non-negotiable. This means investing in schools, empowering teachers, and tackling the socioeconomic barriers that keep students locked out of learning. Digital tools can complement this process, but they cannot drive it. The stakes are clear—without urgent reforms, Lebanon risks losing not just its schools, but an entire generation. 

Introduction  

The recent Israeli aggression against Lebanon has plunged the country deeper into crisis, compounding years of systemic challenges that have significantly deteriorated its public education sector. Thousands of families have been displaced, with many public schools repurposed as collective shelters while the public school year was postponed to November 4. Long before this latest crisis, Lebanon’s public schools were struggling under the weight of multiple intersecting challenges. At a systemic level, these include chronic underfunding, leading to a decline in the quality of education, in addition to the Syrian refugee crisis, the 2019 economic collapse, the 2020 Beirut Port explosion, the COVID-19 pandemic, and ongoing political instability. Public schools, which are free of charge and serve a majority of Lebanon’s underprivileged children, have borne the brunt of these shocks, leaving many students without consistent access to quality education and resulting in severe learning losses. Lebanese children have lost over 60 percent of their schooling in the past six years, while Syrian refugee children, who rely heavily on public education, face enrolment rates below 30 percent and some of the highest dropout rates, with fewer than 4 percent advancing to secondary education.1  

In this context, digital learning has been promoted as a potential solution to ensure learning continuity amid recurring disruptions. Digital learning broadly refers to the educational practices that use technology to support teaching and learning. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Lebanon’s Center for Educational Research and Development (CERD) adopted a combination of online learning, televised lessons, and printed educational materials to support remote learning.2 More recently, the “Emergency Education Costed Response Plan” (EECRP) introduced by the Minister of Education and Higher Education (MEHE) during the latest Israeli aggression, proposed a flexible model that combines in-person, hybrid, and online learning depending on the schools’ circumstances (such as whether they have been repurposed as shelters or physically damaged), in order to “ensure learning continuity for all students.”3 

While digital learning initiatives aim to mitigate disruptions to education, they expose the issue of digital equity. Digital equity in education ties to the broader issue of “digital divide”, which can be broken into three levels: access (disparities in access to digital technologies and internet connectivity), skills (disparities in basic digital literacy), and outcomes (disparities in the ability to use digital tools effectively to achieve meaningful learning outcomes). In Lebanon, where stark inequalities in education persist, notably between public and private schools, the introduction of digital technology to ensure learning continuity raises critical questions: Can public schools leverage digital learning to bridge these gaps? Who truly benefits from these digital initiatives, and who is left behind?  

Digital inequities are entangled with broader social inequities, including class, gender, race and other forms of oppression, underscoring the need for a more nuanced perspective.

Many studies on digital (in)equity in education focus on measurable gaps (in access, skills, and usage) but often overlook the deeper, systemic inequalities that shape students’ and teachers’ experiences with technology.4 Digital inequities are entangled with broader social inequities, including class, gender, race and other forms of oppression, underscoring the need for a more nuanced perspective. Hence, understanding digital inequities in the Lebanese education context requires situating them within the country’s enduring structural challenges and examining their intersection with the educational and social realities of teachers and students. This approach,5 in examining how broader systems of inequality influence access to and outcomes from digital learning, challenges the assumption that digital learning initiatives can effectively mitigate, let alone solve, Lebanon’s educational crises. To boot, the approach shifts the focus toward the systemic changes needed to create a more equitable learning environment for all students, ensuring that digital solutions neither reinforce existing inequities nor create new ones. 

Digitising education in Lebanon  

Technological solutionism in education policy 

The drive for ICT integration and digital learning in Lebanon reflects global trends that promote technology as key to modernising education, but it also emerges as a response to the severe disruptions in Lebanon’s public education sector. This vision, which can be referred to as “technological solutionism,”6 positions digital technologies as both markers of social progress and practical solutions to challenges such as school closures. 

Technological solutionism is reflected in the country’s national strategies, such as the Ministry of Education and Higher Education’s (MEHE) 2012 national educational technology strategic plan, “Teaching and Learning in the Digital Age”, and the Ministry of State for Administrative Reform’s “Lebanon Digital Transformation Strategy (2020–2030).” Building on earlier education reform plans in 1994 and 2010–2015 that introduced computer studies into the curriculum and sought to promote ICT use in schools, these plans aimed to leverage the transformative power of digital technology in education. The MEHE’s 2012 plan aimed to upgrade school infrastructure and integrate ICT into the curriculum as well as teaching and assessment practices. Yet, while ICT integration had already been underway to support learning in many private schools,7 these ambitions largely failed in public schools due to persistent challenges: an outdated curriculum unsuited for ICT integration, insufficient teacher training, lack of funding, and regional disparities in equipment, infrastructure, and educator capacities.8 

 

Public school teachers, lacking support, often resorted to using WhatsApp to deliver lessons,10 while many parents – particularly those with limited proficiency in the other teaching languages, French or English – struggled to assist their children

The COVID-19 pandemic further exposed these gaps. The 2020 school closures forced a shift to remote learning: while private schools devised their own remote learning strategies, public schools relied on CERD’s initiatives, online platforms such as Mawaridy, and televised lessons. Yet, students from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds – the main beneficiaries of free public education – faced exclusion due to unstable electricity, limited internet access, and a lack of devices. A 2020 UNHCR survey revealed that only 54 percent of vulnerable households had internet access, with stark regional disparities – 65.5 percent in Beirut compared to 25.5 percent in Akkar.9 Public school teachers, lacking support, often resorted to using WhatsApp to deliver lessons,10 while many parents – particularly those with limited proficiency in the other teaching languages, French or English – struggled to assist their children.11 These conditions exacerbated existing inequities and echoed global trends. As a recent study noted: “Digital solutions entrenched old inequities, exposing an educational digital divide that created new forms of exclusion and ‘new (digital) vulnerabilities’.” 12 

Towards a neoliberal agenda for education 

The drive for digitalising education in Lebanon reflects its broader political economy. Chronic underinvestment in public schools, and other public services, has led to a growing dependence on international donors and NGOs to bridge the gaps. Foreign donors have taken on a prominent role in shaping education policies, while international and local NGOs have become essential partners in their implementation. This trend of NGOs addressing deficiencies in social services was further amplified by the series of crises Lebanon has faced. It must be understood within the broader neoliberal ideology promoted by international institutions like the World Bank since the 1980s, that sees NGOs as more efficient than the state in delivering services. This dynamic has resulted in the gradual erosion of state sovereignty and the privatisation of Lebanon’s public services under a neoliberal aid regime.13 

The increasing focus on digital learning within donor proposals for the education sector illustrates how technological solutionism has come to dominate education reform in Lebanon.

International donors such as the World Bank, UNICEF, and the European Union have been central to shaping Lebanon’s education policies since the 1990s and more so in recent years.14 This can be illustrated in the 2021-2025 General Education Five-Year Plan, designed by the MEHE with direct contributions from the Word Bank and UNICEF. This Plan envisions digital technologies as a solution to learning losses from school closures while promoting “21st-century skills” for socio-economic development.15 The increasing focus on digital learning within donor proposals for the education sector illustrates how technological solutionism has come to dominate education reform in Lebanon. 

By positioning digital technologies as effective remedies to address some of the challenges within the Lebanese education system, this solutionism reflects a neoliberal rationality that prioritises quick, measurable results over addressing deeper systemic issues. While digital tools can offer immediate solutions in emergencies, such remedies are inadequate for tackling systemic inequities. Evidence from countries of the Global North shows that structural inequalities in education persist long after ICT integration.16 By emphasising the transformative power of digital technologies to achieve performance, efficiency, and accountability, this approach risks entrenching systemic inequities rather than addressing the deeper, structural issues that contribute to educational disparities. 

Digital inequity in learning 

Digital inclusion: Beyond the barriers of access and skills 

While policy discussions focus on digital technologies as remedies to educational challenges, the issue of digital (in)equity remains underexplored. This underscores the importance of critically assessing not only the systemic factors driving educational and social inequities but also how digital learning initiatives in Lebanon risk perpetuating or deepening these inequities. Research on digital education in Lebanon has primarily documented disparities in access to technology and insufficient teacher training,17 but much of this work focuses on evaluating the effectiveness of digital technology in education. In doing so, it uncritically positions digital tools as neutral instruments of learning, overlooking their broader social and educational implications. The EECRP reflects this narrow framing of digital equity as a matter of access and skills, through measures such as distributing free internet bundles to teachers and students and offering online training for teachers on Microsoft Teams. 

While access to devices and Internet is essential to the equitable integration of digital technology in learning, research grounded in a sociological and critical approach has highlighted that inequities extend beyond access and basic digital literacy. Even when students have access to devices, their ability to use them effectively for educational purposes depends on sociocultural and contextual factors, such as socioeconomic status, cultural background, gender, location, and parental involvement. Research shows that parental support significantly shapes their children’s digital practises and their ability to leverage technology in ways that positively impact their education, thereby challenging the myth of the ‘digital native’.18 

 

Public schools, which accommodate a growing number of students who can no longer afford private education, face chronic underfunding, repeated teacher strikes over low pay, and prolonged closures.

Who is at risk of being left behind? 

In Lebanon, empirical research on how sociocultural contexts influence students’ relationship with digital technology and the impact of their digital practices on their educational and social outcomes is scarce. Yet, the country’s stark socioeconomic divides suggest that public-school students face significant disadvantages. Unequal access to quality learning opportunities, along with clientelist practices in the recruitment and training of public school teachers, has exacerbated the challenges faced by public schools. Additionally, the growing contractualisation of teachers and the resulting deprofessionalisation of this workforce,19 along with the state’s disinvestment in the public sector, leaves public school students at a significantly higher risk of dropping out.20 UNICEF reported in 2022 that 30 percent of school aged children had dropped out of school, 40 percent of families had reduced educational expenses, and 13 percent of children were working to support their families, with the situation worsening by late 2023, as 26 percent of households had children out of school, a figure rising to 52 percent among Syrian refugees.21 

These disparities are further reflected in unequal infrastructure, resources, and teacher training between public and private schools, as well within the public sector itself, where contract teachers are less qualified than permanent teachers. Public school teachers often lack adequate training in digital teaching practices, limiting their ability to foster students’ autonomous and self-regulated learning through technology.22 For instance, the widespread use of WhatsApp by public-school teachers during COVID-19 and recent disruptions reflects its accessibility due to low data consumption as well as the ease of integrating it into teaching practices, given its everyday use for communication in Lebanon.  

The highly uneven learning conditions between schools and the differing educational and social strategies that students can rely on are likely to contribute to (re)producing digital inequities among learners.23 The recent crises faced by Lebanon have exacerbated these unequal dynamics and severely weakened an already fragile education system. Public schools, which accommodate a growing number of students who can no longer afford private education, face chronic underfunding, repeated teacher strikes over low pay, and prolonged closures.24 In addition to this, roughly half were converted into collective shelters and/or damaged by the latest fighting, with students from South Lebanon particularly affected. 

In this context, the digital learning initiatives proposed as part of the EECRP – such as Mawaridy and Madristi e-Learning platforms, Microsoft Teams for online lessons – to sustain learning during school closures, raise critical questions. Beyond access and skills, these digital learning initiatives require a high degree of self-regulation and autonomy from students – abilities that are difficult to achieve in light of the systemic challenges outlined above, compounded by displacement and the emotional toll of the latest war. Without addressing these structural barriers, such initiatives risk exacerbating digital inequities in education, as the students most vulnerable to dropout are paradoxically expected to bear the burden of independent learning within an unequal and fragile system. 

Looking Ahead  

The introduction of digital learning in Lebanon, while positioned as a solution to mitigate educational disruptions, reveals deep systemic inequities. Technology-driven solutions alone cannot bridge gaps caused by chronic underfunding, political instability, and socioeconomic disparities unless the underlying structural issues are addressed. Public-school students, already marginalised by under-resourced schools, face greater risks of exclusion from digital learning due to unequal access to resources, inadequate infrastructure, and limited teacher training. 

Without a concerted effort to address these underlying issues, digital learning initiatives risk entrenching existing disparities rather than contributing to equitable learning continuity, making it crucial for policymakers to shift their focus from short-term technological solutions to long-term, systemic reforms. Addressing structural barriers – the chronic underfunding of public schools, the deprofessionalisation of public school teachers, and the compounded effects of the socioeconomic crisis – is crucial to building a more equitable education system. Without such reforms, digital initiatives risk entrenching, rather than alleviating, Lebanon’s educational inequities.  

Education Governance Social protection

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