Teachers’ Challenges in Times of Protracted Crises in Lebanon

Abstract

This research study is intended to better understand teachers’ perceptions of remote learning during a time of crises in contemporary Lebanon. It does so by examining the perceptions of public and private schoolteachers that are teaching in Lebanon in relation to the educational experiences that are available to them and their students during the severe economic and political crises that started in October 2019 and got intensified by the Covid-19 pandemic and the 2020 Beirut blast. The study seeks to offer a richer picture of the current Lebanese binary educational system and the implications of this binary system on teachers’ opportunities, working experiences, and commitment to the profession during difficult times. This is set within the context of a longstanding history of educational marketization in Lebanon principally linked to an extensive network of both religious and secular fee-paying private schools that hire mainly qualified teachers and invest in them professionally to gain popularity in the Lebanese community. The study is critical exploratory, and qualitative in nature. It involves semi-structured interviews with a sample of both public and private schoolteachers teaching at different stages in Lebanon. The data collected through the semi-structured interviews are analysed thematically by using Braun and Clarke’s six-phase thematic analysis framework. The findings reveal differences between public and private schoolteachers’ capabilities of teaching remotely during the closures resulting from the several crises hitting Lebanon in the last three years. Also, the findings show that the teachers from both public and moderatefee-paying private schools have been pushed to resort to other sources to enhance their income such as working in several schools or planning to leave the country to work abroad and improve their living