The Syria Response Coordinators Team confirmed that more than 2.2 million children in Syria are educational dropouts, including more than 340,000 children in northwestern Syria, and 80,000 inside camps.
This came in a report on the occasion of the International Day of Education, during which it stressed the continuing difficulties and challenges facing the educational sector in Syria.
The relief group stressed that most students dropped out of education as a result of various factors, most notably child labor as a result of the high cost of living and the inability of parents to secure the child’s educational supplies, in addition to cases of early marriage, the distance of educational facilities from residential areas, and other reasons.
The attacks by the Syrian regime and Russia destroyed hundreds of schools and put them out of service, as the number of destroyed schools that were put out of service reached more than 870 schools, including 227 educational facilities in northwestern Syria during the last three years.
More than 80 schools in northwestern Syria also suffer from use outside the educational process and the schools being occupied with tasks not designated for them.
The first response team added: “In the camps for the displaced, which include more than two million displaced people, there are more than 67% of those camps (991 camps) that do not contain educational points or schools, as children are forced to travel long distances under different weather conditions to obtain education.”
The report indicated that more than 55 teachers lost their lives during the last three years as a result of military attacks by various parties, in addition to the migration of hundreds of teachers, and another part shifted to other work as a result of the interruption of support for the educational process, as more than 45% of schools suffer from interruption. Support, and the response rate for the education sector reached only 29% during the past year 2023.
The team explained that the trend towards privatizing education, “shifting to the private sector,” with an increase of 24% over last year, has increased dropout rates and deprived thousands of students of education, and public schools are also witnessing massive crowding within the classrooms, reaching 44% as average crowding, and 23% very crowded.
The team pointed out that university education is not better off, as thousands of university students suffer from an unknown future as a result of the many problems that higher education suffers from, most notably the lack of recognition of university degrees and the failure to enter most of the universities currently included in the international classification of universities.
The Syria response coordinators stressed the need for the international community and the United Nations to play a key role in rebuilding the education sector and contributing to building local communities to achieve their goals.
Comments About This Article
Please fill the fields below.