Libyan Public Primary Schools between reality and ambition to become child-friendly schools, according to UNICEF standards - Case study: Public Primary Schools in the Capital, Tripoli

Abstract

In light of the great and increasing interest shown by developed countries in the quality of education by expanding their educational institutions to keep pace with the progress and development of modern methods of education; moving away from traditional education and creating an educational environment that is compatible with technological development and its requirements. In addition, the quality of education can be improved through an advanced school environment that adopts educational policies that will enhance children's academic and behavioral outcomes. Therefore, it was necessary to shed light on the issue of public primary schools in Libya where they stand in the global development of education, and the extent to which they can be developed to become child-friendly schools. To keep up with this development, a problem surfaced, which is the failure of the built environment of primary schools in Libya to mismatch with the global development in modern teaching methods, as they depend on indoctrination and memorization methods in conveying information to students, not on participation and understanding. This problem is considered one of the most important reasons that led to the decline and deterioration of the education quality, as Libya has been included since 2015 among the (unclassified) countries that do not have the simplest standards of quality in education according to the Primary Education Quality Index included in the Global Competitiveness Report issued annually by the World Economic Forum (Davos). The importance of the research paper lies in shedding light on this problem to improve the quality of education in Libya and its educational outcomes. In addition to raising the educational system's performance by identifying the most important design needs for it to become child-friendly schools by evaluating random samples of public primary schools located in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, as a case study. One of the most important objectives of this paper is to reach requirements to determine the standards that must be taken into account when designing public primary schools. This paper relied on the (inductive) approach to determine the needs of primary schools, by studying the child-friendly school standards included in the United Nations Children's Foundation (UNICEF) guide. The (deductive) approach is also used in the current situation of some primary schools within Tripoli city to evaluate them and identify their suitability for applying the UNICEF Guide standards for child-friendly schools. Also, identifying the shortcomings and problems that these schools suffer from. The most important methods used to analyze the results were (Personal Construct Psychology and Eco-analyses) and (Microsoft Excel). The research paper reached some recommendations to the authorities responsible for the education sector to reconsider the terms and standards for designing schools to be implemented in the future. In addition to reaching some requirements and standards for improving the existing environment of public primary schools as an educational development unit to become child-friendly schools to achieve comprehensive community development.