46 EDUCATION: LEGAL MECHANISMS Despite not being party to the 1954 Convention to end statelessness, Lebanon has enabled mechanisms to ensure access to education to stateless persons. That said, the complexity of the process and socio-economic factors heavily disrupt the feasibility of undocumented children to effectively enroll in schools. Lebanon guarantees a “free education” to all as per article 10 of its Constitution, which also engulfs the UN Declaration of Human Rights (UNDHR) that specifies under article 26 (1) that “everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages”. Lebanon’s obligations also entail the respect of the Convention of the Right of the Child (CRC), which it is party to since 1991. By passing Law No. 150/2011 on Compulsory and Free Education, Lebanon has thus met the requirements under article 28 (a) of the CRC urging states to “make primary education compulsory and available free to all”. As such, the Lebanese education sector formally acknowledges the right for stateless children to enroll, attend classes and even pass official examinations and degrees until the end of the secondary cycle. However, registration processes within schools are chaotic and unclear. Starting 2010, the Ministry of Education and Higher Education (MEHE) started developing the registration process of MeQ and understudy children in public schools. The circulars hence cover Lebanese and non Lebanese students, in addition to Palestinian refugees, MeQ and under-study children. Despite the comprehensiveness of the mechanism, stateless children in Lebanon continue to face significant obstacles in accessing education, as they often fall through the cracks of existing policies. These difficulties are attached to the cost in time and money needed to obtain formal required documents by stateless households. MEHE’s present mechanisms detail the type of documents needed for enrolling children in public schools, such as valid residence permits for under-study children (some schools will tolerate an expired one) or Ta’arif cards issued by the mukhtar for MeQ cases. Some schools even go further and ask for all documents be legalized at the MEHE, in addition to family health bulletins showing for vaccination status of the children. A significant proportion of parents of stateless children cannot afford these procedures, hence end up dropping the idea of accessing schools altogether. Every year, MEHE now issues circulars towards the beginning and end of the academic year regarding the registration process and organization of official exams in schools1, incorporating all the required documents for pupils to formally register. 1. El Nashra (2023). The Ministry of Education issues an administrative memorandum regarding the dates for accepting registrations for the official exams for the year 2023 [in Arabic], 22 February 2023. © 2023 Siren Associates. All Rights Reserved.