Housing & Schooling in Libya

It is one thing moving to Libya and finding the right housing, but quite another if you also have to find suitable schools as well. For expatriate employees moving to Tripoli, it can seem a daunting task ensuring their children’s education continues seamlessly.

In the past, many expatriates chose not to relocate with their families, at least not with children beyond early school years. Nowadays though, educational, not solely housing options and standards in Libya are high on the agenda of corporations seeking to attract the best staff from overseas.

Palm City is aware that its promise of providing the first total housing solution in Libya for expatriates includes helping residents go about their daily lives, with all that family living entails. There are currently over half a dozen, first-rate educational establishments within a short distance of Palm City’s housing at Janzour.

The options available, which range from kindergarten to tertiary education, dispel the notion that expatriate children will face gaps in their schooling or be exposed to educational systems and standards at variance with international norms. The Tripoli area has seen a rise in the number of educational establishments catering for the influx of expatriates. Apart from the American and British schools, the city offers a number of new-build, campus-style schools for pre-kinder through to grade 13, and a school set up by oil companies in the late 1950s. A relatively new addition at tertiary level is the Informatics University, which teaches in English. Interestingly, corporate investment in education seems a trend now being revived.

Schools offer a variety of internationally-accredited curricula, including the British, US and Irish school leaving systems as well as the international baccalaureate. The standards are high: it is not uncommon to find pupils attain among the highest marks awarded for certain exam systems worldwide; one school we visited had a former student gain a place recently at the renowned MIT in the United States.

Most schools have international pupil and staff complements, which is in itself an advantage for a child’s educational experience. It is common to find up to 30 nationalities represented among the student and staff bodies. The multicultural atmosphere and rigorous academic standards offered by private schools in Tripoli can give peace of mind to anyone considering housing their families in Libya.