The Ministry of Education and Higher Education confirmed that the decision to merge a number of public schools and secondary schools does not aim to close schools or deprive any student of his right to education, explaining that the step comes within a reform plan to rationalize spending and improve resource management in the formal educational sector.
The Minister of Education and Higher Education, Rima Karami, said in a statement that the decision is limited to gathering a limited number of struggling schools and high schools that remained open despite the low numbers of students in them, noting that the number of students in some of these schools does not exceed 10 students, which violates the approved regulatory standards.
The Ministry confirmed that it will ensure the transfer of all students to nearby public schools and secondary schools, ensuring the continuation of their education without any interruption or deprivation of their rights.
Karami explained that the decision was not taken suddenly, pointing out that the Ministry had suspended the implementation of integration last year and gave the concerned schools a year to settle their situation and attract a sufficient number of students to justify their continuation, but these schools were unable to achieve this.
She added that the merger decision comes within a plan aimed at rationalizing public spending, reducing waste, and improving the efficiency of distributing human and financial resources, in line with the requirements of the Ministry of Finance and the recommendations of donors and the World Bank regarding addressing sources of waste in formal education.
The Ministry regretted that a reform step, aimed at protecting the public school and good management of public funds, had turned into a subject for populist bidding and slogans, stressing that the interest of the student, the quality of education, and the good management of public resources will remain the basic criterion in its decisions.
It stressed its openness to any objective data that may conflict with the foundations on which the merger decision was based, stressing that it will study these data seriously and will not hesitate to reconsider any case in which it is proven that there are new facts that were not available when the decision was made.
