Many Lebanese families fear their children might miss out on education because the country's under-funded public schools have delayed their starting date as the sector grapples with years of economic crisis.

Lebanon's public institutions have been crumbling since the economy collapsed in late 2019, pushing most of the population into poverty and dealing a heavy blow to public schools.

An unemployed mother of three children, Farah Koubar, told AFP: "I don't want my children to be uneducated. The most important thing in life is education. One must learn to succeed and later find work. It's my right. I was educated, and I want to educate my children. If I have to, I'll go to the ends of the earth to do what is in the best interest of my children."

She continued: "Every human being dreams of having a better future, of living in a better country, better than what we are going through now. Everything is expensive, food is expensive, water is expensive. And all the prices are increasing: diesel, gasoline, even bread. Prices for food and water are increasing. Nothing is cheap these days. We have nothing."

Chief of Education for UNICEF Lebanon, Atif Rafique, said: "There's an educational learning crisis in Lebanon, particularly affecting the most marginalized children, those that rely on the public sector to provide safe learning opportunities. We know from UNICEF's rapid assessment in June 2023 that 15 percent of households have stopped the education of their children, and that's catastrophic for those children and also for families and the future of the country. We also know that increasing numbers of children, one in 10, have stopped education and are working."

"We absolutely need more children in school for longer, so that they're not dropping out and building the skills they need. The main challenges are definitely the supply of good quality education, making sure that there are motivated, empowered teachers that want to teach and are able to make ends meet with the salaries that they get," he added.

An unemployed mother of four children, Rana Hariri, shared her struggle saying: "Now our problem is two-fold. We're already suffering from a bad economic situation at home, and as a mother of four children, I can't afford to enroll them in private schools, we can't pay for transportation and stationery. Now we have the additional concern that teachers are striking, so some students are having to sit at home. Children are facing immense pressure to keep up when they return to school. Some say that the curriculum is being reduced, but that's not true. Children are struggling to keep up, and so are we."