As the war in Syria enters its tenth year, with no political solution to the conflict in sight, its spill over is upholding a humanitarian, development, security, and socio-economic crisis in the entire region. Education gaps are particularly worrying. Over 1.7 million children and youth are in need of education assistance in North West Syria. The conflict has taken a tremendous toll on children’s access to educational services and protection. Children in Syria suffer protracted and multiple displacement, continuous exposure to violence, family separation, chronic psychosocial distress, recruitment into armed groups and economic exploitation.
According to Joint Education needs assessment conducted by multiple NGOs in December 2019, the number of school-age children in the NW of Syria reached 1,712,468 34% (582,239 children) of those school-age children are out of school. Among the JENA findings, the percentage of OOSC increases in higher educational levels (the higher the educational level, the higher the percentage of OOSC). Furthermore, the percentage of female OOSC is always higher than that of male OOSC.
JENA found that 25% (909 children) of OOSC attended school before dropping out, and the majority of children confirmed that they attended school before their displacement. On top of the reasons related to the educational environment leading to children dropping out of school comes the frequent displacement, in addition to having no nearby schools in places of displacement. JENA shows that only 8% (277 children) of surveyed OOSC joined out-of-school educational programmes. In contrast, 92% (3,393 children) did not join these programs.
OSRA team evaluated a total of 292 children aged between 8-15 years old using EGRA toolkit. The results showed that almost 40% (a total of 116; 59 boys and 57 girls) of children could not read any word correctly.
OSRA team evaluated a total of 292 children aged between 8-15 years old using EGRA toolkit. The results showed that almost 40% (a total of 116; 59 boys and 57 girls) of children could not read any word correctly.
To contribute in filling the gap in education sector according to the needs, OSRA has designed it is program which provides remedial education for out of school children specifically in camps. Wherefore, OSRA in partnership with SAB and coordination with the Directorate of Education in Idleb governorate; has conducted rapid assessment on education needs and evaluation on reading level amongst school-aged children in Kelly camps in Maaret Tamsrin sub-district in Idleb governorate. The total assessed camps were 7 including 4,442 IDPs with 40% of school-aged children. The camps have no schools available and all children were out of school since displacement which was more than 6 months ago.
Education is just as important as food and medicine. Increase the support to the education sector by international institution is very important to save them and prevent them from engaging in violence and feeding the armed groups. Children who have dropped out of school due to frequent displacement should be targeted through complementarity education providing basic numeracy and literacy classes for adults especially. Camps with no schools’ needs establishing new temporary educational spaces and supporting families who send their children to school regularly with motivational prizes.