Early childhood education in Lebanon

According to (Yarak, 2014), 72% of the children in Lebanon are enrolled in ECEC classes, which is a higher percentage than any other countries in the Middle East. ECEC classrooms are distributed randomly in Lebanon between different cities and villages, and only 26.9% of educators have qualifications or suitable degrees to be in ECEC classes. The educational environment in terms of infrastructure and equipment is not available in many formal kindergartens, especially those in the most disadvantaged areas. It is obvious that the quality of teachers who are not really trained, is affecting the education in general, teachers without qualifications are not providing the quality education for the kids, and this is affecting their academic performance in the future.

Moreover, the education system in Lebanon is divided into private and public education, and since the government is not really supporting the educational process with suitable tools and even training for the service providers, this is creating the gap between the students who came from public and private schools. Thus, affecting the education system generally (Yarak, 2014).

Furthermore, some evaluation studies of early childhood development programs state that:

The key to success is embodied in providing high quality care in early childhood development programs, through the low ratio of children to teachers in the classroom, and the provision of teachers with high levels of experience and science. This means that the actual class should be provided with two teachers at least instead of one, because in Lebanon there is always one teacher in a class of 20 children. This is not logical if we are looking for a high-quality education. Early childhood development programs that include the parent education and participation component have proven to be more successful than programs that only provide the child education component. Program success rates increase when early intervention is done to discover children at risk in disadvantaged societies. The benefits of early childhood development programs are realized in the end. Additionally, children learn most and acquire languages

efficiently at this age 3-5 years old, which means taking care of the little details in this stage is necessary for a successful education system (Yarak, 2014).

The ministry of education considers ECE period as one of the most important for children in order to succeed. However, according to MEHE the early childhood period is the main period of every child where they can develop their skills from different aspects, such as social, emotional and other learning skills. Thus, the concentration is on all the core aspects in order to contribute to the development of every child. Making sure that children are getting a good, quality education not only prepares them for a good academic life, but also helps them to build positive relationships with their parents and the community (Yarak, 2014).

The Ministry of Education in Lebanon is working on the early childhood program. One of the main goals is to increase the number of children who are enrolled in it, until they cover all Lebanon through the following steps (Yarak, 2014): Improving the learning environment infrastructure. Developing the kindergarten and learning resource curriculum. Start a vocational training program for kindergarten teachers with the aim of increasing the proportion of teachers and qualified staff. Additionally, Increasing family awareness and parent participation in kindergartens through conducting awareness sessions.

Yarak (2014) found that setting an organized plan and implementing it considered as a paramount, in order to improve the services that are offered in the ECEC program, and especially in the rural areas, that requires a special care and development. Furthermore, rehabilitation of kindergartens within existing spaces (no new building).

Developing the Education system is always important, and many countries are working on the school reform including Lebanon, in order to keep updated. Anyhow, (Yarak, 2014) states that the Lebanese curriculum witnessed three stages:

First, the curriculum is based on content and its core 'what do we know? The evaluation process aims to measure the student's abilities in recollecting knowledge in the classroom, and applying it in positions close to those that have been learned.

Second, the curriculum is based on educational objectives, which are based on a behavioural approach, after which the selection of objectives begins and then starts from their educational culture in view of the individual characteristics of the learners.

Third, building the curriculum based on an approach with efficiency. Educational systems have found that leading the development of a country must take into account the needs of

society, the needs of individuals, the cognitive, technological development, the theories of knowledge, and building without focusing solely on cognitive content. It is a trend in many educational systems to focus on the use of the knowledge that a student acquires in school in situations of daily life.

However, Yarak (2014) mentioned that the curriculum development is a continuous process.

Hence, children can be enrolled in the ECE classrooms from three to five years old, and the development of the curriculum is necessary concerning many aspects. such as, developing the resources that are efficient for their development, and developing children socially and emotionally, through adding more creative activities, and by adding the play-based environment which can give more opportunities for kids to participate and get engaged positively.

Additionally, the safe environment is one of the aspects to be developed, the fact that can have a positive impact on the children for future stages and prepare them for the higher grades in the public school with all its parts.

The Lebanese Ministry of Education and Higher Education (MEHE) realizes that training teachers is very important in order to keep them updated with the changes, especially the ECE educators who face many difficulties in the classes such as, autism, dyslexia and so on. Thus, proving the education curriculum with new methods of teaching that can respond to these challenges is important and recruiting trained teachers is a core solution for this. Moreover, creating the referral system is another solution that can help teachers follow the special cases and screen them in order to help experts interfere and help children overcome such learning difficulties. Furthermore, MEHE is working in parallel with parents through awareness sessions, and offering support for children who are suffering from health issues that can affect their learning process such as, vision or hearing problems and so on. This is important for parents who have no access for health care services especially that the medical system in Lebanon does not cover all people (Yarak, 2014).

However, Lebanon is facing currently the impact of the Syrian crisis, where 50% of the children who entered Lebanon are between 3 and 6 years old. This is affecting Lebanon due to the lack of the basic services, and the financial trouble that is already happening in Lebanon.

That is why the government is trying to see more help from the international community through different NGOs (Yarak, 2014).