Lebanon 2024

Key takeaways

In Lebanon, initial VET is accessible in both rural and urban areas but struggles to attract learners due to its negative reputation. Many families view it as a pathway for low-performing students, which discourages wider participation. Continuing VET remains underdeveloped, with limited funding and availability, and few adult learners are able to access further training. Transitions to university are possible but rare, as many VET students face learning difficulties and risk dropping out. Public VET schools also lack remedial and dropout-prevention support.

Delivering basic skills and key competences is a persistent challenge. Students in Lebanon’s VET system lag three to four years behind international benchmarks in reading, science, and mathematics. Outcomes vary by background and location, with disadvantaged learners in public VET particularly affected. Many enter with weak foundational skills and receive little support to improve. Adult education performs slightly better but still falls short in areas like languages, soft skills, and digital literacy.

Lebanon has improved its ability to monitor VET and performs better than many countries in the Torino Process on data availability. External stakeholders play an active role in shaping policy, and quality assurance processes are in place. However, international engagement is limited, and infrastructure and training materials remain outdated. Despite stable funding, inefficiencies and the financial crisis have deepened existing resource shortages. Renewed investment and stronger support for learners are needed to improve system performance.

Access to learning

Monitoring in the area of access to and participation to learning helps countries assess the extent to which initial VET, continuing VET and other learning opportunities are accessible and attractive to all learners, regardless of their individual backgrounds or reasons for participating. The data also reflects how well learners can expect to progress through and graduate from these learning opportunities.

Opportunities for lifelong learning: access and participation

Initial VET in Lebanon remains more accessible than continuing VET, with programmes available in both urban and rural areas. However, the system continues to struggle with a negative public image. Many parents still view vocational education as less valuable than academic pathways and often associate it with low-performing students or those at risk of dropping out. This perception persists despite sufficient capacity to accommodate more learners.

Continuing VET is still underdeveloped. In 2024, it is available only in a limited number of municipalities or through some employers and remains constrained in both funding and scope. Before the financial crisis, employers contributed to CVET financing, although often reluctantly. Beyond VET, lifelong learning opportunities are even scarcer. Lebanon still lacks Active Labour Market Programmes (ALMPs), and the planned New Entrants to Work (NEW) programme – Intended to address this gap – has faced delays and is yet to be implemented.

VET students in Lebanon have some flexibility to shift learning paths, but changing between education tracks is not straightforward. While graduates of IVET and CVET programmes can continue to university, moving between vocational and general education remains difficult. The system also lacks options for combining structured classroom learning with more flexible training, such as that provided by employers or private centres. Still, there has been progress: in 2024, Lebanon advanced work on a policy framework for recognising non-formal and informal learning. Once in place, this should make it easier for learners to move between different forms of training and education.

Despite these challenges, VET students in Lebanon have similar chances of completing their programmes as learners in other countries. However, the lack of remedial teaching and dropout prevention support—particularly in public vocational schools—means some learners go without the help they need to succeed. Expanding support programmes could improve learner retention and outcomes, especially in the public sector.

In 2024, VET in Lebanon remains accessible but continues to face challenges in reputation, flexibility, and adult learning provision. While students in VET show comparable progression and graduation rates, the lack of support services and limited CVET availability hold back system performance. Progress on recognising non-formal learning is a positive step, but broader reform – including stronger support mechanisms and the launch of delayed lifelong learning programmes – is needed to build a more inclusive and adaptable VET system.

The Torino Process is a regular review of national systems of vocational education and training as well as adult education. It is designed to analyse the ways in which national VET systems (including adult education) address the challenges of human capital development in a lifelong learning perspective. It was established by the European Training Foundation (ETF) in 2010 and has been carried out in partner countries in Southeastern Europe, Turkey, Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean ever since.

Monitoring in the context of the Torino Process describes the extent to which countries deliver on their commitments to learners in support of their learning through life (lifelong learning - LLL) in three major areas of policy and system performance: access to learning, quality of learning, and system organisation.

Quality of learning

Quality and relevance of learning is the area of monitoring that identifies how successfully the VET system provides basic skills and key competences to both young and adult learners. It highlights the relevance of VET programmes to the world of work and how effectively VET graduates transition into the labour market. Additionally, it monitors efforts to promote excellence across key domains, including pedagogy, professional development, programme content, governance, and social inclusion, as well as the openness of the VET system to innovation in response to the evolving needs of learners and labour markets.

Lifelong learning outcomes: quality and relevance, excellence and innovation

In 2024, students in VET in Lebanon continue to perform well below international averages in reading, science, and mathematics. On average, they are three to four years behind their peers in other countries. According to the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), around two-thirds of students do not reach basic proficiency in these core areas—putting them at risk of exclusion from further education and future employment.

Learning outcomes are closely tied to socioeconomic background. Students from wealthier families and those attending private schools tend to perform better, largely due to greater access to learning resources and support. In contrast, public VET schools – particularly in rural areas – serve many low-achieving students from disadvantaged backgrounds. These students often arrive with significant learning gaps and receive limited support to catch up. As a result, they leave VET with qualifications that do not meet labour market expectations, reinforcing cycles of disadvantage.

Adult learners also face skill gaps, especially in foreign languages (English and French), problem-solving, soft skills, and digital competence. Adult education performs somewhat better than initial training when it comes to equipping learners with basic skills, but it still falls short of actual needs.

VET programmes in Lebanon offer few opportunities for work-based learning, reducing the practical relevance of training. Gender patterns in programme choice remain pronounced, with male students concentrated in areas like mechanics, and female students in fields such as nursing. This limits career options and reinforces traditional roles. Despite these issues, career guidance services are relatively strong and continue to support students in exploring career pathways and making informed choices.

Progress has been made in integrating environmental themes into some VET programmes, particularly within adult education, which in the 2024 round of monitoring has been recognised for its contribution to local sustainability efforts. However, the inclusion of digital skills in the curriculum remains limited. VET in Lebanon tends to respond to immediate labour market needs and, increasingly, to the demand for recognition of prior learning. Efforts are under way to improve long-term adaptability, but these remain at an early stage.

In 2024, students in Lebanon’s VET continue to face serious challenges in basic skills, with large learning gaps shaped by socioeconomic inequality. The system struggles to provide relevant, future-oriented training, particularly in digital skills and work-based learning. Adult education performs slightly better but still falls short of expectations. Career guidance and environmental education are areas of strength, but broader curriculum reform, stronger support for disadvantaged learners, and greater focus on future skills will be essential to modernise and strengthen VET in Lebanon.

System organisation

System organisation is the area of monitoring that captures performance across various domains of management and administration. It examines whether practitioners and leaders have access to data and evidence to support informed decision-making, the level of stakeholder involvement in VET governance, the quality and capacity of staff in leadership positions, and the degree of internationalisation. Additionally, monitoring the allocation of human and financial resources to the VET system helps assess whether these resources effectively support teaching, training, and learning.

System organisation: management and resourcing

In 2024, Lebanon continues to face challenges in collecting and using data to monitor its VET system. Still, it performs better in this area than many other countries involved in the Torino Process, and some improvement has been made since 2023. That said, data availability remains uneven, which limits its usefulness for guiding policy and managing the system effectively. Addressing these gaps will require not only better data collection but also stronger leadership at the level of VET schools – where performance remains average.

External stakeholders continue to play an important role in VET governance, especially in shaping the National Vocational Strategic Framework. According to official sources, Lebanon also performs relatively well in ensuring that programmes follow recognised standards and are transparent about their results. These quality assurance efforts contribute to building trust in the system by helping ensure that the training provided meets both learner and employer needs.

However, VET institutions and practitioners in Lebanon have limited exposure to international practice. Opportunities for student and teacher exchanges, or for engaging with peers abroad, remain scarce. Expanding international cooperation could help strengthen both the quality of teaching and the relevance of training programmes.

The overall level of financial resources for VET has remained stable, but turning funding into improved learning environments remains a challenge. Longstanding issues with outdated infrastructure and shortages of training materials have been made worse by the ongoing economic crisis. Most providers still need upgrades to facilities, modern equipment, and updated teaching resources. While the management of human resources is relatively solid, there is an urgent need for investment in teacher training and better working conditions to retain qualified staff.

Lebanon has made progress in monitoring its VET system and performs better than many countries in the Torino Process on data collection. However, uneven data availability still limits its use in guiding policy and improvement. School-level leadership needs strengthening, and international cooperation remains underdeveloped. While financial resources are in place, infrastructure and learning materials are lagging behind. Improving facilities, investing in staff, and building international partnerships will be essential to making VET more effective, resilient, and responsive to learner and labour market needs.

Promoting access and participation in opportunities for lifelong learning

Supporting quality and relevance of lifelong learning

Index of system performance

International comparability of performance results

In addition to assessing system performance, the Torino Process also looks at how internationally comparable the results of each country are, how much they may be affected by bias, and how critically countries assess their own systems when reporting for external monitoring. This is possible because the methodology keeps track of the availability, source, and type of evidence used to generate the results of each country - including for Lebanon.

In 2024, Lebanon ranks among the top quarter of countries in the Torino Process in terms of the amount of internationally comparable data reported, and this has improved since 2023. The country meets more of the required international indicators than most others in the sample. However, only about one in four of its monitoring results is based on quantitative evidence, which increases the risk of bias. In other words, while some areas are well supported by data, others still lack sufficient evidence. Despite these limitations, national authorities in Lebanon tend to take a balanced view when assessing system performance. Their self-assessments are generally neutral – neither overly critical nor overly positive – which helps maintain the credibility of the reporting process.