Strategic Pause on the National Libyan Education Reform Plan: Insights & Enhanced Tactics

Primarily based on the strategic pillars presented in the essential plan titled: "National Libyan Public Education Reform: Entire Transformative Strategies 2020 – 2026" ( Published: November 2017 ), which proposed comprehensive bases for reforming Libyan public education as a reflection on the problems that the whole Libyan public/private education system have faced due to still-existing circumstances. It divided the entire reform strategy into six years of definite procedures designed to solve the revealed problems through gradual, ongoing actions. This essential plan was followed by a detailed executive paper on the same reverence plan titled "Contextualizing the First Two Years of the Libyan Education Reform Proposed Strategies (2020 – 2026): Targeted Candidates and Reflective Activities" ( Published: May 2018 ), which explained in detail the projected (Phase I) actions of the first two years of the plan. (Phase II) of applying such a plan was explained in a paper titled "Employing the Subsequent Four Years of the Libyan Education Reform Strategy: Administrations and Contributors" ( Published: January 2019 ), which extensively described the four executive years of the reform strategy with considerations to the constitutional laws or the existing educational regulations in the country. associated project comprehensive work is a result of (16) months of field qualitative study ( & ), which predominantly depended on the pillars of the suggested plan to professionally determine whether the projected National Reform Plan for the entire Libyan education system is still valuable to apply, or if it needs to be modified, developed, or even changed in some of its aspects or in one/all its phases. The significance of obtaining this field work emerged after the increase of great challenges that revealed problems faced by/facing the entire State of Libya: for instance, the effects of civil wars, a prolonged time of sharp institutional division (East and West), and a tremendous deficit (damage) in most education infrastructures and interferences, in addition to the almost non-existence of QAs, CPD, research, technology, and teaching facilities inside public schools, universities, and even in the vocational sector. This is in addition to the deep effects of the continued lack of a clear policy of education and the approximate non-existence of a clear and authentic Vision, Mission, and Goals (VMG) or sequenced tactics of leadership and lifelong learning for educators, inspectors, social workers, education administrators, TAs, and university lecturers, etc. This field study uncovered profound problems in the entire Libyan education system, which might lead to a complete collapse or major failures if it remains as it is now. It also re-verified the still-valued proposed National Libyan Public Education Reform (NLPER) strategy in combination with contemporary innovative concepts, added stakeholders, and developed tactical leadership philosophies and active crisis management techniques, all to be contained in a developed (7) years of reform strategy and tactics instead of the (6) suggested years, which will immediately take place ( the updated Reform Plan ) as a response to the findings of this study.


Introduction
One of the executive bases of this acting study is employing the philosophy and tactics of a "Strategic Pause" on the previously suggested 6 years of National Reform Plan for the entire Libyan education system, in addition to its subsequence excitative phases. This Bridging research contextualizes the three mechanisms of strategic pause (Stop-Think-Lead) on this work by stopping to review the whole offered strategy, thinking of the consequences in Libya (particularly from 2017 to 2021), running a long field study to assist understanding, and ending with modernized suggestions for a new strategy and tactics, which will be outlined in seven years of reform instead of the six suggested years of national reform.
Don Graumann (2020) showed that the Strategic Pause illustrates how to build a Personal Leadership Model that involves both the "what" (the principles) and the "how" (the methods) of leadership. It describes leadership in the present (taking Strategic Pauses) and leadership focused on the future (practicing Strategic Management). It supports putting leadership into your own words and discovering your leadership style, the "who" of leadership (p.11). Also, many other ideas related to strategic pause were drawn from the field of business planning and management. Jeff Davidson (2019) introduced it as, "By mastering the strategic pause, your newfound habit of taking strategic pauses before an event, activity, or continuation of previous tasks helps you to build up a new kind of energy that enables you to go longer, more effectively, each day (p.2). Business Jargons (2021) explained that the pause/proceed with caution plan is often followed by manufacturing companies who study the market conditions thoroughly and then launch their new products into the market. It is even more frequent in military attacks, wherein the reconnaissance party moves ahead to examine the situation before the troops, who come in full strength to ultimately attack the enemy (p.99).

Brief Formulation of Libyan Education
It is significant to professionally recall how education in Libya was formed even before the civil wars and the prolonged (10) years of countless crises. Elabbar (2011) pointed out that Libyan teachers learned to be Libyan teachers in a particular social context, using a particular kind of knowledge at a particular time; therefore, their practices are socially constructed. The practices of most Libyan educators have been constructed from their cultural background (attitude), their views on learning (learning styles), teaching (teacher-centered, with student memorizations needed to pass), and the kind of education they have received (p.44).
Also, as clarified in the previous paper (Elabbar 2019), the Libyan Education Authority in 1995, according to its "Vers-109," revealed that the Libyan government ONLY provides general policy statements specifying the determinations of the school stand points. For example, the "curriculum must cover all activities in a school designed to promote the moral, cultural, intellectual, and physical development of students, and must prepare them for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of life and society, etc." (p.66).
However, El-Hawat (2006, 215) and then Elabbar (2016) claimed that most of the schools and universities' education are managed by directors who apply whatever policy they personally International Journal of Education ISSN 1948-5476 2021 feel is most appropriate. This point has caused great differences between schools, universities, faculties and even departments. For example, because of the absence of executive strategies, the ministry of education (either East or West) only permits its national university directors (presidents) to apply whatever policy they individually feel is suitable for them to administrate. This point has caused differences in management among public universities.
On the other hand, but in equal context, because of unique circumstances-for instance, the suspension of teaching English as a foreign language (EFL) for long time, the interchangeable management of the whole education system, prolonged civil wars (2011-present), and great corruptions of the scholarships program-two different generations of EFL teachers (OGT & NGT) clearly emerged at the university level.
Elabbar (2019) summarised various Libyan scholars who pointed out that teachers who have been teaching at university for more than 18 years could be considered old generation teachers (OGT). Because of the political and cultural reasons and their impact on teachers' development, most of the OGT are still using their own methods of teaching and administration and have been choosing their own materials for a long time (p.25). Some of them maintain their old perception of teacher-centered and student-level measurement while ignoring the use of modern teaching facilities such as labs and modern tools such as PowerPoint, the internet, and email, etc. This way of teaching reflects a belief of how teaching and learning should be, as their beliefs and perspectives have not changed or developed (p.55).
Moreover, Walid (2011) and Elabbar (2011) pointed out that the majority of the new generation teachers (NGT) have been taught by the OGT during their undergraduate studies. Then, after the re-opening to the West in 1999, some of the NGTs got the chance to complete their MAs/PhDs abroad. Those teachers have therefore experienced different ways and schools of learning than they learned at universities. Some of the NGT are still facing difficulties in applying their new experiences with their students due to the OGTs administration and control. According to Elabbar (2019), this control remains strong at most university faculties and is supported by the government, which might reduce the NGTs' abilities to implement their strategies (p.61).
With the same EFL perspective, according to Orafi and Borg (2009), the ban of English deprived teachers of training on new trends in teaching methods and made students struggle with unfamiliar communicative technique-based activities, such as group and pair work. Orafi (2013) also highlighted that "The students only act as listeners. The students come to the school only to listen to what the teachers say. They do not think that they should actively participate in the classroom activities to learn English" (p. 5). Alhmali (2007) has honestly put out that the objective of educators in Libya is for students to pass exams with the highest possible scores (p.88).

Demonstrations of the Problem
Besides this, there are the consequences of the multiple security, economic, and continuous political crises, civil wars; poor education aids and facilities; COVID-19 implications on basic, International Journal of Education ISSN 1948-5476 2021 secondary, and even university education as various classes in both school and university systems were deferred, cancelled, or disrupted; and the remaining effects of the unplanned changes of curriculums (moving secondary education back again) from a specialized system to general. Also, there are deep impacts of the administration's bureaucracy, community culture, social interferences, and corruption cases in education management. All these determined problems have clearly produced unqualified leadership in both ministries' (East-West) decision makers, who extended the struggle of the education system, along with the profound influence of the continued absence of lifelong learning programs and the catastrophic weakness in their declared (mostly on document only) strategies of training among school and universities' educators and administrators of education.
From another perspective, but in the same context, there are failures of various school and education zones (Education Counties), for example in the surveillance of the general high schools' examinations. This problem has caused various high school students to get extremely high percentages (grades) to pass the university admission conditions, whether by undeserved qualifying or by memorizations before the university placement tests without acquiring actual knowledge that qualifies them to join the university.
In addition to such issues, the repercussions of the longtime electricity and fuel crises and the high cost of living, as well as the prolonged lack of cash and other severe living problems that the whole country is going through, still have great negative impacts on the psychological and emotional health of students, the extent of their scientific and absorptive readiness, and the extent of the support they receive from their teachers and families. Also, these issues profoundly affected many members of schools and universities to abandon scientific research and have almost no opportunity to participate in professional development or training programs, which all led to wide range of disappointments among teachers, inspectors, education administrators, university educators, and parents, etc. As a result of all the above consequences, the values of the whole educational awareness are obviously decreased, and constructive interaction and scientific research have been mostly neglected. In some cases, it has reached to the point of neglecting the completion of many core subjects in schools and universities. Therefore, during these (16) months of field work, this study clearly witnessed, observed, evaluated, and then sadly reached out to raise the warning level to the CLOSE collapse of the entire education system and administration unless emergency professional measures are immediately taken in a responsible atmosphere, away from conflicts, administrative corruption, and other types of unprofessional interference. Otherwise, the entirety of Libya will face a strong wave of semi-illiteracy and enormous loss of needed knowledge, innovations, and competencies, which may well cause devastating effects on the current and future generations.

Methodology
Among the employed Strategic Pause awareness, and to accomplish the defined goals of this study, a Qualitative Research Method is applied through semi-structured interviews, focus groups, needs-analysis forms (Sheets), in-classroom research, and official document analysis. ISSN 1948-5476 2021 All are used as field study data collection tools. Additionally, as stated above, this paper is a sequence of previous proposed studies which suggest a gradual national reform to the entire Libyan education sector.

International Journal of Education
Along with the main goals of this study, which chiefly seek to confirm the validity of the planned proposal, this paper intends to use developed techniques to acquire adjusted plans, all to deal with the past circumstances in Libya, especially from year 2017 to 2021. As a result, all collected data, analysis, and findings will be ONLY summarized in this field work paper to be widely used in the modified National Plan this paper is seeking to come out with 7 years of gradual instead of the 6 suggested years.

Qualitative Research Theoretical View: Summary from Literature
The process of qualitative research supports the researcher in collecting valuable data and findings; it will help to obtain the field study's main aims. Strauss and Corbin (1990) stated that qualitative research is generally defined as "any kind of research that produces findings not arrived at by means of statistical procedures or other means of quantification" (p.17). Bogdan and Biklen (1998) added that "qualitative research is conducted in the natural world and uses multiple techniques that are interactive and holistic. It allows for the gathering of data that is rich in description of people, the investigation of topics in context, and an understanding of behavior from the participants' own frame of reference" (p.10).
Flick (2002) said that qualitative research is useful for exploring "why" rather than "how many" (p.4). Also, Davis (1995) shows that qualitative research is emergent rather than "tightly prefigured" and is fundamentally interpretive (p.429). Holliday (2005) states that there is an idea that qualitative research is "going to be 'open-ended,' to look profoundly into the participants' behaviors within the specific social settings" (p.5). Berg (2004) showed that qualitative research "provides the framework to explore, define, and assist in understanding the social and psychological phenomena of organizations and the social settings of individuals" (p.11). Lincoln (2000) also explained that qualitative research includes an "interpretive and naturalistic approach. This means that qualitative researchers study things in their natural settings, trying to make sense of, or to interpret, phenomena in terms of the meanings people bring to them" (pp.3-4).

Methodological Processes
During the executive management of collecting data, I have carefully considered the anticipated logistic difficulties, constrains of bureaucracy, COVID-19's huge influences, and of course, Libyans' culture. Thus, these (16) months of field work specifically designed and then applied such tools to ensure diversity and various sources of information in several ways, with people from different positions in the Libyan educational system besides my personal affiliation to the English Department as a Faculty of Education for the University of Benghazi.

The Research Contributors
During the field work, this research demanded a wide range of contributors who are directly and even indirectly associated with the whole education process in Libya. It involved various International Journal of Education ISSN 1948-5476 2021 figures and levels of the Libyan education organization, as those members represent most of the significant Libyan universities, high-positioned individuals, and students (mostly EFL). After finalizing all ethical preparations such as symbolizing, the research collected data from the following: ▪ (3) Graduate research project students, (7) semester six students, and (9) semester seven students, all at the English department -Faculty of Education, University of Benghazi (permission to reference without names) ▪ Current (2021) Dean of the Faculty of Education (UoB), Registrar, and exam administration officers, in addition to heads of (5) departments at the same faculty (permission to reference positions without names, except the dean-full permission) International Journal of Education ISSN 1948-5476 2021 ▪ (20) EFL public school teachers and (5) EFL private school teachers in the City of Benghazi (permission to reference positions without names) ▪ (18) EFL school inspectors in the City of Benghazi, (3) inspectors from the City of Ajdabiya (permission to reference positions without names) ▪ Founder, Board, and trainers at the BYTE Organization (Non-formal education organization), who are currently (2021) contracted with international organizations such as ABA, UNIFEF, and USAID ▪ (15) Non-formal entrepreneur and self-developments trainees (permission to reference positions without names) ▪ (67) High school students who graduated from 2017-2020 (general high school graduates) in the city of Benghazi (permissions to reference without names) ▪ (8) High school students who graduated before 2017 (specialized high school) (permission to reference without names) ▪ (25) Parents of high school and university students (permission to reference positions without names)

Documents
During the field work, and after finalizing the required paperwork, I evaluated various documents and decrees of both ministries of education (East and West: 2014-2021), which means before the current government of National Unity announced March 10, 2021. Evaluation of these documents was about reproduction and arrangements concerning, for examples:

1) Both ministries' declared strategies of educations in both public schools and universities
2) Secondary (Grade 9) and high school (Grade12) testing and administration scheme and written tactics 3) MOEs' reactive strategies towards the impacts of civil wars: displaced schools, students, educators, administrators, and inspectors 4) Continuation of a non-clear policy of education; cultural, political, and even personal interference in education management 5) Announced (in documents) action plans through almost no facilities, libraries, or infrastructure at schools and universities 6) Responsive procedures toward complaints, speculations of corrupted testing processes, and PTSD organizations 7) Content and pedagogical managements tactics 8) MOEs' declared standing points about training and professional development and the roles of social workers International Journal of Education ISSN 1948-5476 2021

Process and Classification of Data Analysis
As explained in the study's abstract, profound goals, and questions; also based on the types of collected data (from people of various positions), lengths, and the locations of contributors. The process of data analysis was qualitatively classified into headlines and sub-headlines as follows:

Analyzing Collected Data from the Distributed Needs-analysis Forms (designed Sheets) for Teachers, Inspectors, University TAs, and Educators, in Addition to Analyzing Various Official Documents from Ministries (East and West), Universities, and Schools
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Analyzing the Total Collected Data (ALL) from in-classroom Research and Ministries (East/ West) of Education Documents; This Analysis Grouped the Participants' Responses into 8 Classifications
-Pre-service teachers need analysis sheets aims to figure out their faced difficulties at the department of English -Faculty of Education, University of Benghazi -Written placement tests for incoming students (students who graduated from high school to the university) -Written needs-analysis sheets for (67) EFL school teachers -Written needs-analysis sheets for (51) EFL school inspectors -Written needs-analysis sheets for (88) school administrators, faculty of education employed staff, and registry officers -Ministries of Education academic preparation proposals, management, training, and action plans (129 Decrees) -(66) Public universities' documents related to professional development, quality assurance, emergency action plans, strategic plans, and education plans -(14) Documents and official letters from the Parliament Committee of Education regarding ministries' administration, scholarships, CPD, QA, and budgets, etc.

Summary of Core Findings
The outcomes of this field study clearly "RAISE" the warning signals to the Highest Level among the government, parliament, and all education authorities in the state of Libya, that the International Journal of Education ISSN 1948-5476 2021 whole education system "MAY COLLAPSE" if they (all together) do not adopt serious steps and fundamental measures "BEFORE" it is too late.
Because of the longtime instability of the state, various unqualified administrators of Libyan education, deep-rooted challenges are obviously appearing in all levels of education (schoolvocational and university levels).
Exceptionally low overall education "Input" and "Output" knowledge in comparison to the 8 years before connected with real frustration among a wide range of students.
There are/is almost no strategic or tactical polices, systematic training, or professional development programs, in addition to a clear absence of learning tools, aids, internet, and even libraries.
The massive impacts of political division (two ministries of education, East and West) on education management, atmosphere, and leadership, in addition to civil wars, are reflected in the education infrastructure and stability of education.
There is a real educational deficiency in the temporal pool and the knowledge shares acquired and granted to secondary education students who entered the universities in recent years compared to what they should be, which resulted in an almost fundamental weakness in the academic and cognitive abilities of many of them to deal with the employed system; this issue led to academic and administrative confusion in the universities' handling of such challenges.
There are no effective periodic studies and surveys that would determine what the educational problem is between, for instance, university education triangle college, administration staff, and students.
The effects of culture, the attitude of the whole education administration, and longtime control of OGT have resulted in some unqualified people in high positions in the education system.
Even after announcement of the Government of National Unity (March 2021), nothing has changes except unifying the ministers' offices by splitting the Ministry of Education into three (Ministry of Education, Ministry of Higher Education, and Ministry of Vocational education), all for political reasons rather than for solving the clear, deep-rooted problems.
Impacts of Covid-19 and lack of cash (they cannot get their money from banks because of political conflicts) on the whole teaching and administration staff who are clearly frustrated.

More Findings to Summarize
The University of Benghazi, as a clear example, applies all the laws and regulations (such as 501/2010 regulation) leading postgraduate studies regarding the appointment of teaching assistants at the university. However, due to the circumstances (mostly mentioned above) that the Libyan state has gone through, most of the scholarship decrees related to the faculty (studying MA, MSC or PhD) have been mostly suspended, which caused the university to overcrowd with scientific departments and led to the failure of most of the faculty to do educational work that helps them expand their research and academic perceptions. Rather, several of them reached almost a reluctance to attend their departments under the pretext of the International Journal of Education ISSN 1948-5476 2021 lack of tasks assigned to them, not to mention that the university, not even the college, did not benefit enough from their energies and enthusiasm in scientific research or collecting research data or even contributing to raising the efficiency of their departments and students.
The real absence of crisis management or, for example, implementing an interim and long-term program and plans in parallel to increase the efficiency of cooperative professional relations with the education sector (secondary and university levels).
Participants' (on my presented needs-analysis sheets) inclusive suggestion of ideas such as adopting a methodology over the short and long term to understand the active and fruitful participation of the teaching assistants (in particular, the permanent faculty members and employees), then proposing programs for the restoration and development of educational policies and outputs after determining their priorities and contents, whether for each semester or for the general outputs in a sequential and gradual manner that simulates the labor market.

Major Recommendation
Technically and deeply improve the same indicated strategy to be (7) years instead of the projected (6) years of gradual national reform, as the new strategy must utilize and consider all comprehended findings, circumstances, and even predicted problems.

More Immediate Recommendations
Encouraging bridging curriculums, an association between secondary education for students and university education in the college in terms of general subjects and foundation materials for specialization, for the student to be able to compensate for content-knowledge deficits and move away from study seats because of the circumstances passed by the state of Libya.
Active preparation for new university students and current second semester (university) students by adopting a unified educational policy between all public universities' faculties departments; taking into account the loss of time in gaining the knowledge that these students faced as a result of the repercussions of COVID-19, wars, and other circumstances, by creating interactive, integrative programs based on technology and other cognitive activities; paralleling and supporting academic lectures by teaching assistants and other faculty members whose academic hours must allow for this.
Supporting the core subjects and methods of teaching the foundational subjects in each faculty and departments, particularly by pushing strictly towards adopting interactive lectures and monitoring their implementation, in parallel with the intensification of their study hours (i.e., the foundational and core subjects), accompanied by giving a greater role for the teaching assistants in the "coloring" of these. The inputs should be in the form of subsidiary activities that are complementary and useful to the official lectures, which helps the teaching assistants to create planned educational experiences and also helps the students to acquire the largest amount of information and knowledge in several ways.

Recommendations to the Faculty of Education (particularly the English Department) University of Benghazi
Preparing a unified program among the departments of the faculty of education (as an example) to determine the education level of students (not an entrance exam), studying the weaknesses among new EFL applicants (researcher's affiliation), and establishing the adoption of the faculty's strategy in preparing remedial and integrative programs within the curricular plan of each academic department. This would contribute to reducing the gap in knowledge loss for new students and even the two readers if the same mechanism is applied to them.
The faculty adopts the "atypical" system in qualifying and developing the entire academic process, quality control and performance evaluation through, for example, but not limited to: -Introducing the faculty's developmental research and workshops system.
-Supporting the creation of a website and electronic portals.
-Pushing for the establishment of the conviction to adopt the mechanisms of interim and future strategic planning in the educational process.
-Establishing a culture of qualification and sustainable development and spreading a culture of respect for rights and duties for all (students, teaching assistants, faculty, and staff) during the educational process.
Activating the role of the (department coordinator) and involving them in the interim plans and urging them to deal with students' data and prevent confusion in the flow of information and daily announcements by relying more on technology and providing them with tools and equipment.
-Imposing a central policy requiring academic departments to prepare field studies inside and outside the college, whose results and proposals are submitted to the college council on a monthly and quarterly basis, to adopt a strategy to keep pace with the labor market and solve the educational bottlenecks facing the education sector and college graduates within it.
-Creating interactive and optional study materials that simulate the educational levels, desires, and individual skills of students, reviving the idea of an academic advisor for students of graduation projects useful to the labor market and the faculty's needs in terms of research information and its results for each department.
Request to review the interactive departments' plans (non-theoretical and theoretical) in a written and competitive manner to deal with phase management, simulate the needs of the labor market, and adopt the best of them as a central work platform for the immediate and future phase.
Requiring the heads of departments, as well as the teaching assistants and students of graduation projects, to fill out performance evaluation forms, which must be carefully studied by specialized committees from the faculty of quality management, whose purpose is to activate research activities in the colleges in which faculty members, teaching assistants, and students reside. ISSN 1948-5476 2021 The necessity for faculty teaching assistants to participate in collecting and analyzing data, taking samples for workshops, and introducing their departments and specializations in the form of lectures for new students before their nomination to postgraduate studies, in addition to the duties of the teaching assistants stipulated in the current laws and regulations of the state.

International Journal of Education
Adopting a central policy based on the plan, monitoring its implementation seriously and strictly, and adopting the documents system and departmental databases, noting that some departments do not have data for students, or any documents related to the hierarchy and knowledge hierarchy for students, and they do not have an academic mechanism or plan to manage the tasks, duties, and rights of teaching assistants.
Supporting the strategy of accepting the largest possible number of new students after adopting the mentioned policies and proposals to restore momentum to the faculty in serving society in general, as well as the education sector.

Ending
As mentioned in the paper's abstract, this 16-month field study is a continuation of the previous projected papers which suggested 6 years of entire gradual reform of the Libyan education system. After these months of field study, it is realized that the Libyan education system is in serious condition and may need 7 years, NOT 6 years. In addition, emergency actions should happen immediately to rescue the whole system from destruction. The following paper (7-year strategic plan) will try to work in details, updated problems, and modern solutions using the comprehensive data I've collected during these 16 months of field work, as well as modern ideas of strategic planning, leadership, and crisis management.