Palestinian Students in Lebanon
From The Ground Column #2-Lebanon
In Lebanon, the right to education for Palestinian refugees is shaped by exclusion long before a child enters a classroom. Around 225,000 Palestinian refugees from 1948 and 1967, together with their descendants, live in the country, but their lives are marked by a legal and social framework that denies them full civil and social rights. Lebanon has not signed the 1951 Refugee Convention, and Palestinians continue to be treated as a population placed outside normal protections rather than as people entitled to rights and stability.
For Palestinian children, access to school depends overwhelmingly on UNRWA, the UN agency mandated to support Palestine refugees. In Lebanon, UNRWA remains the main provider of primary and secondary education, serving tens of thousands of students in dozens of schools across the country. Yet this system operates under constant pressure. Classrooms are overcrowded, resources are stretched, and funding is fragile, making education for Palestinian students possible only through a structure that is itself underfunded and politically vulnerable.
The problem does not end with basic schooling. Palestinian students in Lebanon face a harsh transition when they try to move into higher education. UNRWA does not cover university education, so families are left to navigate a system that is both financially inaccessible and structurally discriminatory. Public universities have limited capacity and prioritize Lebanese students, while private universities are far beyond the reach of most Palestinian families because of their high cost. Even when Palestinian students are academically strong, merit is not enough to overcome the barriers built around them.
This exclusion is not only economic. It is also legal and institutional. Palestinian refugees in Lebanon face restrictions that affect their access to certain professions and, by extension, their educational choices. A student may be technically free to enroll in a degree program, but if that degree leads to a profession they cannot legally practice, the promise of education becomes hollow. In this way, discrimination does not simply limit opportunity; it shapes what kinds of futures can even be imagined.
Scholarships, which are often presented as a solution, do not fully close the gap. They remain limited, unevenly distributed, and insufficient compared with the scale of need. In practice, Palestinian students compete not only against structural poverty but also against a system in which support tends to flow first to Lebanese students. As a result, many talented young Palestinians are forced to postpone university, choose less-preferred paths, or abandon higher education altogether.
The consequences are visible in the long term. Fewer Palestinians in Lebanon complete university education compared with their Lebanese peers, and this educational inequality feeds directly into unemployment, social marginalization, and poverty. What begins as a school problem becomes a broader crisis of social mobility, with whole generations pushed into a cycle where exclusion is inherited rather than overcome.
For Palestinians in Lebanon, then, education is not just a question of access to classrooms. It is a question of whether a population already denied political rights will also be denied the tools needed to build a future. A fair education system would not treat Palestinian students as a tolerated exception, but as young people entitled to the same dignity, support, and opportunity as anyone else.
Source: Ulaia association
#FromTheGround
Education and professional training are universal rights. Ensuring access to these rights is the responsibility of governments, civil society, and activists worldwide. Through its “From the Ground” column, Yalla Study seeks to amplify the voices of those who have been denied access to education. The situation in Sweida serves as a stark reminder that without recognition, protection, and action, the right to education can quickly become an empty promise.
