Lebanon’s Schools Flunk as Westerners Flee and Extremists Flourish

The exodus of Western professors and teachers from the violence of West Beirut has plunged Lebanon’s educational system, once the envy of the Arab world, into deep crisis.

Colleges are often at the mercy of extremists and gun-toting students.

On May 9, the remaining faculty at the American University of Beirut voted to suspend classes until a kidnaped professor is released. The professor, Nabil Matar, a 36-year-old Lebanese Christian, was seized two days earlier as he walked to the campus in mostly Muslim West Beirut.

“The AUB is unwilling to function under the present conditions and to tolerate the continuing violations against its members,” the university faculty said in a statement.

Many of the 70 Westerners who were evacuated from the capital’s Muslim sector in the latter part of April were academics and administrators.

Until they left, the educators had defied the militiamen who rule West Beirut. They kept the leading colleges and schools functioning amid the bloodletting that has seriously undermined the whole system.

The academics fled after Muslim extremists kidnaped British, French and Irish teachers--the latest victims of a concerted drive by the extremists to force out Westerners, teachers in particular.

Two of the British teachers, Leigh Douglas, a political science professor, and language school director Philip Padfield were killed by their captors April 17. Peter Kilburn, an American who was the librarian at the American University of Beirut, also was slain after 17 months in captivity.

“The loss of all these dedicated people, some of whom have stayed on for years despite the violence, leaves a big hole that may never be filled,” said a Lebanese government official.

“Can’t these people doing the kidnaping see what they’re doing? It’s our children, and theirs too, who suffer. They’re being robbed of their future.”

But Lebanon’s education system had been going downhill in the country’s decadelong civil war and in cycle after cycle of intermilitia feuding.

More than 40 state schools in the Beirut area have closed. In the villages, schools have closed because of a shortage of teachers.

The Beirut schools no longer function because they are either jammed with refugees, occupied by militias or shut down because they are too close to the so-called Green Line, which divides the city between the Christian east and the Muslim west.

Many of the schools still open are so packed with pupils from other schools that they have to take classes in shifts.

“Some schools shelter three other schools, so each batch can only attend classes for 2 1/2 hours a day so that everyone can be accommodated. That’s instead of six hours of teaching a day,” said Mohammed Kassem, a general secretary at the Education Ministry.

The remorseless bloodletting, the civil-war fighting in which thousands of shells and rockets fall in a single day on residential areas, an economy in chaos and the pervasive influence of the unruly militias has taken its toll on the education system, a legacy of French colonial rule.

“Many students have been affected materially and psychologically by the war,” said Prof. Fuad Rifka of Beirut University College. He explained:

“Some have lost homes and relatives. It’s hard for them to concentrate on studies. Some students are even involved in the fighting as militia members, and that keeps them from classes. High schools have lost their standards.”

Some students who belong to militias carry guns, usually pistols jammed in their jeans, when they go to schools like Beirut University College and the American University of Beirut, one of the institutions hardest hit by the kidnapings and killings.

One Western teacher told of a student taking apart his 9-millimeter automatic in class. When he was chastised, he told the teacher: “I can always put it together again, you know.”

Such intimidation is not uncommon. Rifka said he believes that most professors are terrorized to one degree or another, powerless to stop it.

“Students who get a B grade these days would probably have gotten a C for the same work a few years ago,” Rifka said. “Students who get a D would have failed the course. I’m much more lenient these days.”

Professor John Munro, a Briton who taught English literature at American University, commented before he left in the evacuation: “Can you ask someone to put his life on the line for some grades?”

Shafik Masri, of Beirut University College’s law and political science faculty, acknowledged that cheating is extensive during examinations. “But no one dares to stop it,” he said.

The Star, Beirut’s struggling English-language weekly, said: “Lebanon’s schools and universities are a shambles even though many have escaped relatively unscathed from physical damage.

“The devastation is taking place within the minds of the teachers and students. . . . All that counts for these students are the diplomas and degrees they have not earned through study but which they extort from their teachers.

“The ethos of education in Lebanon is being murdered. And murder is a crime.”

The paper cited these cases:

- A pathology professor was told to hire an assistant nominated by a political party or get out of Lebanon. He left.

- A student militia representative on campus gave his professor a list of students who were to get passing grades--or else.

- A teacher of English took an examination for one of his dullest students because he feared for his life if the youngster failed it on his own.

Some faculty members at the two universities fear that they will lose their vital U.S. accreditation if standards continue to decline and the militia influence and kidnapings persist.

The American University, 120 years old and once the most prestigious university in the Arab world, has been badly hit by the violence.

Campus Shooting

Its American president, Malcolm Kerr, was shot to death on campus in 1984 by Shia Muslim fundamentalists of Islamic Jihad (Islamic Holy War).

The Iranian-backed, anti-Western faction also kidnaped the university’s dean of agriculture, Thomas Sutherland, a Scottish-born American, and another American, David Jacobsen, director of the university’s hospital, last year. They are among the American hostages still held in Lebanon.

Many Christians Kidnaped

Other teachers have been shot, and many Christian faculty members have been kidnaped.

Twenty-five Western teachers were among the foreigners who fled in April. That left only 10 American and British staffers on American University’s 450-member faculty.

However, the institution’s information director, Radwan Mawlawi, is confident that the university, founded by American missionary Daniel Bliss, will struggle on.

“We’ve passed through worse times,” he said. “We’ll replace those who left with Lebanese. Somehow we’ll survive.”

Ed Blanche gathered information for this dispatch before his evacuation with other Westerners from West Beirut after kidnaping threats by Muslim extremists.