Free courses for preparatory students ahead of exams in northern Syria

The White Fingers Volunteer Team launched a free educational initiative aimed at providing free courses for middle school students in the border city of Azaz with Turkey, days before the start of exams in the opposition-held areas in northwestern Syria.

"The aim of the initiative is to provide free intensive lessons for ninth-grade students," said Diana Lata, director of the Zaman al-Wasl educational initiative, explaining that "we have now finished the first stage, which is the local council exams.

In addition, the students underwent experimental exams that were similar to the exams of the local councils, and the students benefited greatly from the experimental exam, and now we have entered the second stage, which is providing intensive lessons for the students, which will continue until the start of the exams of the Syrian Interim Government.

Lata stated, "The initiative has so far included 25 female students from various Syrian regions, some of whom had dropped out of school due to several circumstances."

She confirmed that "ten teachers contributed to this initiative, including coordinators and administrators, within the Youth Club Center - Violet in the city of Azaz in the northern countryside of Aleppo, northern Syria," noting that "the importance of this initiative aims to raise the educational level within the liberated areas."

Lata said, "The initiative provides lessons in most of the basic subjects of the curriculum, namely: general sciences, English, mathematics, Arabic, and Islam, in addition to providing psychological support to the students."

The initiative official explained, "There are a large number of male and female students in the liberated areas who need such initiatives, due to the economic situation and the inability of the students' families to enroll their children in private schools or institutes for special courses.

 The educational level is rather low, and therefore a large number of students resort to private schools or institutes, but there are a large number of students who do not have the ability to pay the material costs of these lessons and courses, especially since a large part of the students are displaced within the camps.

Bayan al-Ismail, a displaced woman from the city of Maarat al-Nu`man, who is one of the students who benefited from the initiative, told Zaman al-Wasl, "Yes, I benefited from this initiative. There is no shortage of it, and such initiatives must exist in our region because there are a large number of students, including those who have dropped out of school." Some of them have weaknesses in subjects, especially scientific subjects.”

A large number of students dropped out of school in recent months, due to the devastating earthquake that struck northwestern Syria and southern Turkey on February 6, killing more than 50,000 people.

The earthquake caused the displacement of thousands in northwestern Syria, which led to a large number of students dropping out of school due to the change of the region and displacement to less harmful places, as the preparatory and general certificate exams within the opposition-held areas will begin on July 6 and end on July 20.