The other day I was sitting in the office of an accountant who insisted on updating me on his children’s progress at university. Both were medical students and were costing him US$30,000 a year between them in tuition fees. He admitted that he was struggling to meet the payments but insisted it was worth it. “They will be the first doctors in our family,” he said. “Imagine.”

Education is a big deal to the Lebanese. And it costs. Although some of its public universities are quite good (a recent study citing IMF estimates listed lecturers’ salaries in the state universities as the highest in the region), Lebanon has no reliable government school system, a state of affairs that forces the majority of Lebanese parents to shell out between $1,500 and $10,000 per child in the private sector.

Private universities cost much more. Fees at the American University of Beirut, the country’s most prestigious seat of learning, start at about $22,500 per year. Not surprisingly, as much as 40 per cent of household earnings is allocated to education.

The accountant then asked me about my kids. I told him my son would be going to university next year to study sound engineering. There was a silence, perhaps even an awkward silence, as the he digested this piece of data. “Bravo,” he said. “I hear there’s a lot of work in those restaurants that host cabaret singers.”

He didn’t really know what sound engineering was. As far as he was concerned that was the extent of my son’s prospects and deep down I’m sure he thought I was wasting my money. The boy obviously couldn’t cut it in a “real” degree programme, so he would end up a bearded boho with little chance of earning serious money and even slimmer marriage prospects.

Maybe I’m being unfair, but this kind of thinking is not uncommon. When it comes to career choices Lebanon is still very conservative. I should know. My late father never really got to grips with the fact my degree was in literature, politics and history, all seen as girls’ subjects. OK, he would argue, so I couldn’t cut it as a doctor or an engineer but couldn’t I at least have done law?

Academia is also an option. With a PhD you are also a “doctor” and you’d better make sure you use the title, even if you don’t ever use the degree. Lebanese do not spend about $2.3 billion on education (8 per cent of GDP) then quietly bury the results for the sake of propriety.

So yes, when it comes to perceptions on education, it is easy to accuse the Arab mind of functioning on a hard drive programmed by vanity and old-fashioned or half-baked ideas. But maybe it is simply the result of a mentality that makes us determined to better ourselves and to make the most of opportunities; a healthier return on investment if you like. Why study English literature when you can study law? My father craved the solid respectability of the professional middle class, a desire fuelled perhaps by the fact he had not had the opportunity of a higher education.

But consider this: Lebanon has a staggering 40 “universities”, a huge number for a country with an official population of 4 million. Of these, only a dozen are any good; the rest are run as businesses, happily milking our desire for respectability. Many of these “universities” have the word “American” or “US” in their name, hinting at international credentials, but most of these links are at best tenuous.

They have flooded the market with overqualified labour but they have also created a yawning gap in the job market for properly trained vocations and administrative workers. Where are our certified electricians, plumbers and mechanics? Where are our veterinary assistants, our carpenters and our gardeners?

We will never be a balanced society if we are all doctors – or sound engineers for that matter.

Michael Karam is a freelance writer based in Beirut