Overhauling education a key task

Benghazi: At a small elementary school here in Libya's second-largest city, dozens of teachers for the first time returned to classes since the fighting started in February and abruptly forced all schools to close.

They gathered in sunny but spare classrooms surrounding a bare courtyard with peach walls. According to a sign above the entrance, this is Maarakat Al Karama Elementary School. But the teachers shake their heads at mention of the name. It was bestowed on the school after the 1969 coup led by Muammar Gaddafi. The teachers have decided to return to the original name of the school, Al Nemuthajia. It means "exemplary."

But the school's name isn't the only thing that changed when students came back on September 17. "For the first time in 40 years, the teachers began teaching the truth," says Zakia Abdul Nabi, an elderly Arabic language teacher.

Getting rid of Gaddafi propaganda that fills the textbooks is just one of the tasks ahead as Libya faces the enormous challenge of rebuilding an education system that was systematically eroded for four decades. Libya's new leaders must also work to transform a system that sought to instill the regime's ideology in unquestioning students into one that encourages dissenting opinions, critical thinking, and dialogue. Doing so, say education experts, will be key to building a strong and democratic Libya.

"If education doesn't change, nothing else will change," says Hana Al Gallal, a law professor at Benghazi University and rights activist. "This is for me the biggest challenge and the biggest fight ahead."

And there is much work to be done. Teachers receive dismal salaries, and little, if any, training. Corporal punishment for students is rife. Officials say that new school construction has been mostly nonexistent for 20 years while the population grew, leading to overcrowding. Making matters worse, during the revolution hundreds of school buildings across the country were damaged or mined, looted, or used as makeshift munitions storage depots, prisons, or housing for refugees.

And while teaching standards were low, 9th and 12th grade exams were purposefully made so difficult that only 30 per cent of the students would pass and go on to secondary and higher education. That left 70 per cent of them to drop out of school altogether or go to technical training, says Wafa Bugaighis, an official with the transitional leadership's Ministry of Education who helped develop the ministry's plan for getting education back on track.

"There was a systematic destruction of the education sector," she says. "There has been no training, no investment, no upgrading."

Textbooks were infused with Gaddafi regime ideals to train obedient citizens. The most blatant was a subject called "The People's Society," in which students studied, among other things, Gaddafi's Green Book laying out his political philosophy.

Coup mention

But his propaganda was also woven into history textbooks, which teachers say almost totally omitted mention of the monarchy that Gaddafi's coup overthrew.

"A huge period was missing" from the history books, says history teacher Abdul Salam Al Imami. "I didn't know who tried to unite all of Libya after colonisation — it was the monarchy." But under Gaddafi, he couldn't teach that to students. In Arabic language lessons, the text to be studied often contained stories about the leader.

While some teachers were hired for their loyalty to Gaddafi, others simply did what they had to out of fear. "We could not say anything," says teacher Najat Al Darreji. "If we talked about it, for sure we would go to prison. We knew it was wrong, but we couldn't say anything."

Several teachers say they sidestepped students' questions on sensitive topics by telling the pupils they were required to memorise the material, not to understand it. Rewriting the textbooks is a task that will fall to a new transitional government, which Libya's leaders say they won't appoint until all of the country is under their control.

"At this point we have no right to change the curricula," says Bugaighis. "Developing it has to be a national project."

From indoctrination to critical thinking. For now, the priority is getting kids back to school. They will continue using the same textbooks; the NTC's education committee went through the books and issued instructions on which parts to teach and which parts to discard.

— Christian Science Monitor