Why More Schools Aren’t Fixing Education in Lebanon
For years, we’ve assumed that improving education in Lebanon simply meant building more schools. So when I visualized the 2023 district-level dataset, I expected to see a clear pattern: more resources leading to lower dropout and illiteracy. But as the bubble chart came together, a different story emerged.
Districts like Akkar, Baalbek-Hermel, and Hermel despite having a large number of schools and universities, still showed some of the highest illiteracy and dropout rates in the country. At the same time, regions like Baabda, with similar or even fewer resources, performed significantly better. This contradiction revealed that access alone doesn’t guarantee learning.
What the data showed instead is that deeper socioeconomic and cultural factors shape educational outcomes far more than infrastructure. Poverty, limited community support, and inconsistent teaching quality undermine the effectiveness of available schools. This indicates that to improve education in Lebanon, the focus needs to shift. Rather than expanding the number of institutions, we should invest in teacher development, student support systems, and programs that address the social and economic challenges students face.
The story told by this visualization is simple but important: meaningful progress requires targeting the barriers outside the classroom, not just counting the classrooms themselves.
