Impact Of Private Education Spending On Economic Growth In Lebanon

Abstract

This report aims to identify the volume of official, community and international spending on private education in Lebanon. It also aims to assess the effectiveness of current educational policies and programs and the extent to which the quality of their outputs matches their costs. Based on this objective, this study seeks to investigate the gap between what the state and donors spend on this sector and what the Ministry of Education provides in terms of spending and its actual impact on education outcomes. We shed light on transfers of the treasury's financial resources to private institutions and the treasury's financing of part of the revenues of schools and private institutions. Legislative distortions, decrees, weak accountability, and the absence of a vision for the role and function of education played a role in promoting private education at the expense of the public treasury, as the treasury under various names contributes to financing a large part of the private sector. Education, most notably school donations and mutual funds, which prompts us to think about the equitable distribution of these donations and who benefits from them in light of weak oversight and accountability and distortions in the educational system.

This study adopted the methodology of desk research, analyzing data from available sources, and comparing them with each other

Therefore, a mechanism was adopted based on surveying information from approved sources and international reports and linking them to each other, studying and analyzing the budget of the Ministry of Education and Higher Education, searching for the destination of spending in the ministry, what was spent and what was not spent.

Therefore, we conducted a comprehensive review of all items of the general budget, and the financing of education and the programs allocated to it, which overlapped with school contributions from the public treasury, as well as grants, aid, and loans from international bodies, were examined, in addition to community spending on private education. A mechanism based on surveying information from approved sources and international reports was adopted. And linking them together, studying and analyzing the budget of the Ministry of Education and Higher Education, searching for the destination of spending in the ministry, what was spent and what was not spent.

One of the main difficulties that this study faced was Lebanon's lack of an official or international website that shows data and numbers in a transparent way, something that was previously noted by international institutions that have always indicated this deficiency in their reports. In addition, the severity of the ramifications of the sources of financial revenues for education, the randomness of administration and spending, the multiplicity of figures of the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Finance on the issue of spending, and the absence of transparency made it difficult to count the financial revenues and determine the exact spending numbers.

The study showed that government spending on private education exceeds the numbers assumed in the official and UN reports, which are much higher, since appropriations exceed the Ministry of Education and Higher Education to other ministries, mutual funds, donations, loans, and in-kind contributions from donor countries, and there are differences between what is observed in the budget and what is actually spent.

The sum of the inflated spending on private education in Lebanon, along with debts, arrears, the ministry’s obligations to the public and private sectors, and low education outcomes will inevitably prevent the development of this sector and negatively affect its resurrection in light of the continuation of the adopted policies. The motivation to learn, especially among vulnerable groups, has become almost non-existent. The low enrollment rates for the year 2022-2023 have shown the impact of the ongoing economic crisis on the formal education sector, particularly the poor. The motivation and incentives of teachers to continue in this profession have also been affected, in addition to the escalating migration of higher cadres and competencies and the disruption of the desire to choose education as a profession. Young people have meager salaries, fragile social protection, and an uncertain future.