It seems that the Head of the National Forces Alliance, Mahmoud Jibril, was right when he described the outcomes of the Libyan education as “poor.”

Although government spending on education is high, the quality of this sector is still a concern for many observers, particularly since the quality of the Libyan educational system ranked 142nd out of 144, according to the Global Competitiveness Report 2012-2013 (GCR) published by the Davos World Economic Forum. It came behind countries such as Egypt (139) and Morocco (105).

It seems that the Head of the National Forces Alliance, Mahmoud Jibril, was right when he described the outcomes of the Libyan education as “poor.”

Although government spending on education is high, the quality of this sector is still a concern for many observers, particularly since the quality of the Libyan educational system ranked 142nd out of 144, according to the Global Competitiveness Report 2012-2013 (GCR) published by the Davos World Economic Forum. It came behind countries such as Egypt (139) and Morocco (105).

That gives a clear indication that the output of the Libyan educational system is very poor despite the large sums pumped into it.

Ancient inheritance

The blame is placed on the policies that have been guiding the basic and secondary education system for the last three decades. Unfortunately, these policies are still in place.

The Minister of Education, Dr. Ali Obeid who only took office seven months ago, admits: “There is a real problem with education and the ministry is stuck with inherited obstacles. However, it is trying its best to overcome them and stop education from collapsing.”

Overstaffing

Obeid dropped a bombshell when he revealed that the number of the ministry’s staff and teachers were nearly 600,000 and 400,000 respectively, while according to international scientific standards, Libya only needs 85,000-100,000 teachers.

Thus, Libya’s surplus of teachers exceeds 300,000 and very few actually teach, while the rest get paid for doing nothing.

This is no new news for a study carried out in 2006 under the supervision of the International Consultative Council in the context of preparing a long-term economic and social strategy for the Libyan Planning Council, which showed that a third of the primary school education teachers received salaries without working.

A lack of certain specializations

Paradoxically, a National School Assessment Program (NSAP) report issued by the Ministry of Education (MoE) and UNICEF in February 2013 showed that the ratio of teachers to students is 1:5, but Obeid stresses that it is “about 1:3, and in some schools the number of teachers equals that of the students and sometimes exceeds it.”

This ratio is much less than the Arab countries’ average which is 1:19. Despite the huge number of teachers, the report showed a lack of teachers specialized in literature, arts and music (19 per cent) and physical education teachers (six per cent).

Obeid however refutes these results, saying: “In light of this surplus, it is impossible to face a shortage.The problem lies in the fact that 85 per cent of the teachers are females who cannot, for social reasons, work in remote schools,” he suggested.

New contracts

After the revolution, says Obeid, the education officials in some regions abused their powers and appointed about 50,000 graduates of geology, law, administration and other non-education specializations as teachers and the MoE has given LYD 400 million (US $312,000,000) in salaries for those employees. After investigations, corruption was detected in some of those contracts due to the absence of an electronic database at the time.

“Sixty-seven teachers have been appointed but most of their specializations are not needed in the school, which now has 200 teachers, including only one music teacher, while the number of its students is 500,” says Basma Fhelboom, deputy principal of the Zawiya Janobyia girl school.

“Some contracts were signed under the threat of arms,” stressed an MoE official who preferred anonymity.

Haytham Anbiya, a teacher from Tripoli who was appointed after the revolution, complains that he has not received a salary yet, blaming the MoE for the delay. “The MoE will give him his salaries if he deserves them,” replies Obeid, explaining that the MoE has started developing an electronic database based on the national numbers of the teachers employed under new contracts to avoid double payment of wages.

“Most of the contracted teachers have received their salaries and as soon as the database is completed, the remaining teachers will take their salaries, since the Ministry of Finance has made payment of salaries conditional on well -arranged forms inserted into a database,” he added.

Social reasons

The GCR study also shows that the Libyan educational system lacks needed information, particularly those related to the performance of teachers and principals, which makes it very difficult to develop and implement comprehensive educational policies.

“The MoE lacks a classification system. In other words, we do not know which teachers are experienced and which teachers need training to improve performance, so much so that sometimes teaching allowances are given to inexperienced rather than experienced teachers,” says Obeid.

He however does not have a plan to solve all these problems, blaming social reasons and the current security situation, and stressing that there are huge numbers of teachers whose majors have nothing to do with teaching and education, a problem the MoE has been “vainly” trying to solve.

“Besides, the Libyan educational system lacks the needed incentives for teachers to continuously improve their skills and qualifications and it also lacks a performance-based promotion system and strong and effective system to appraise teachers’ performance. We cannot sack teachers even if their performance is poor due to social reasons and the socialism legacy,” he added.

Horrible situation

“Our school, which hosts over a thousand students, suffers a terrible tragedy for the building is in poor condition; the classrooms have no doors; the desks are worn-out; the water closets are inappropriate for human use; the classrooms are overcrowded and might have as high as 60 students; and there is neither teacher’s room nor cleaners,” says Hatem Gharbiya, principal of the Mashroo Zira’ee high school in Tripoli.

“Although the former minister of education visited the school in March 2012 and promised to repair it, only LYD 4,000 were given, so we could only install glass windows instead of the plastic bags that were in place,” he added.

This school’s situation is not unique for the NSAP’s report shows that 40 percent of schools got damaged during the liberation war; 15 percent have one bathroom for both male and female students; 16 percent lack hand-washing materials for students, one in every four schools lack drinking water, only 1.2 percent have bathrooms for the disabled and 40 percent lack bathrooms for the teachers.

Unrealistic budget

Obeid admits schools’ terrible situation but he ascribes the delay in solving these problems to “shortcomings” in the budget law. Although the MoE has the lion’s share of the general budget, says Obeid, it is “an unreal one,” since 92 percent of the MoE’s budget goes to salaries and only eight percent goes to other items including maintenance, an insufficient sum to maintain 1,500 schools which badly need maintenance all over Libya.

“The available resources only cover 500 schools and indeed 95% of them were repaired between July and September, while the maintenance of the remaining ones was not completed due to shortages of labor,” he added.

Obeid stresses that it was the previous government that set the budget before he took office so he could not amend it. He revealed that only LYD 400 million out of the LYD 1,400 million demanded by the MoE for schools’ maintenance were approved. “I do not know who reduced the budget by 70%,” he insisted.