Syria's Daraa region has schools run by the regime, the rebels and Daesh

DARAA, Syria — As school exams approach every year, Abo Ahmad from Daraa gets increasingly anxious. He awaits his 19-year-old daughter Banaan’s return from the school exam that she has to take in the region that the Syrian regime still controls.

Banaan attends school in a rebel-controlled area, but has to travel to a regime-held area for her exams. Abo Ahmad worries that his daughter will get detained or harassed at checkpoints between the two sides. He doesn’t rest until she is safely back home.

Abo Ahmad’s son, Ahmad, had completed the second year of his studies in the Faculty of Agricultural Engineering before the outbreak of the revolution. The young man has given up on the idea of continuing his education, fearing he will get arrested. As a student, he had participated in demonstrations at the start of the revolution and has seen many peers arrested – some of whom later died under torture.

Abo Ahmad’s youngest child Rami is nine years old. After a two-year delay, he started going to the temporary school established by the youth in the region as a civilian initiative to combat illiteracy in rebel-held areas.

In Daraa, the ghost of illiteracy returns after a long absence

The Syrian revolution broke out in March 2011, which the Syrian regime tried to suppress with unparalleled force. Less than a year before, the Syrian culture ministry had announced Daraa was free of illiteracy in the 15-45 age group.

The regime waged an open war on regions that slipped out of its control. As a result, all aspects of life were negatively affected in those areas, especially the education sector. It was suffering from big issues already, mainly that the educational infrastructure was being destroyed and schools were being turned into shelters to house displaced people in downtown Daraa, Basr al Hareer, Inkhil and many other regions.

Syrians’ fears of sending their children to schools led to a delay in education for many school-age children whose studies became interrupted by the civil war. As of January 2018, UNICEF estimates that 1.75 million school-age children in Syria remain out of school. The difficult economic conditions in Syria have also led to families taking their children out of school in order to work and help support their families.

Syria also suffers from a lack of teachers who have either been internally displaced or sought refuge in other countries. Many teachers have given up on teaching in the regime’s schools because they fear getting arrested, or being drafted into the military. Other teachers have either joined the Free Syrian Army, or started their own business, or taken up jobs in other fields.

The education map in Daraa

Daraa now has three different education systems that vary in capacity, capability and orientation. The first group of schools are run by the Directorate of Education in the Syrian Interim Government. The directorate oversees schools in some rebel-held areas. There are 70 schools like this catering to about 8,500 students.

The curriculum in these schools are similar to those of regime-controlled schools, but rebel-run schools leave out subjects that praise the Baath Party or the Assad family. These schools suffer from intermittent support and lack of resources and equipment, according to the director of education of Daraa province of the Syrian Interim Government Muhammad al Wadi.

None of the neighbouring countries but Turkey accept the certificates issued by the Syrian interim government. This poses a great challenge to students getting international recognition for their preparatory and secondary schooling and leads some to abandon their studies in these schools. Many students apply to take exams in the regime centres to ensure they receive an internationally recognised certificate.

To maintain its grip on the education system in Syria, the regime has kept its administrative oversight on many schools, even if they’re in areas it no longer controls. There are almost 400 schools like this serving more than 80,000 students in Daraa province alone, and their curriculum reflects the regime’s agenda.

The opposition avoids getting involved in these regime-administered schools in order to maintain stability in the education system. If the regime were to withdraw from the schools it administers, the opposition would be left without the means to manage or finance them; there would be no money to pay for teachers’ wages, school books, heat or water. Having the regime run these schools not only prevents an educational crisis, it also allows students attending these schools to receive internationally recognised certificates that allow them to further their studies at Syrian or Arabic universities.

The third group of schools in Daraa are run by Daesh. They popped up after the terrorist organisation took complete control of the Hawd Al Yarmouk region in the western countryside. At first, Daesh allowed the previous education model to continue, with the condition that males and females would be separated. As time went on, Daesh set up its own system, imposing special rules. This meant that unless children wanted to lose out on an education, they would accept being taught by Daesh and its affiliates in religious studies as well as some subjects taken from the regime’s curriculum.

Higher education

In 2015, the first initiative was launched in rebel-held areas to provide university education that would provide an alternative to regime universities: Al Bashaer College was established in two locations: the eastern and western countryside, in Daraa. The first class of 74 students have graduated from the Teacher Training Institute at the end of 2017 with specialties such as class teacher, natural sciences, mathematics, religion, Arabic, and English language. Daraa governorate has lost a considerable number of its teaching staff; some died in the war, while others became refugees or took jobs in other sectors. The graduates have the opportunity to seek and secure teaching jobs in the rebel-held areas of Daraa.

There are other efforts in Daraa to improve higher education and provide opportunities to university students to continue their education. For example, there’s Almzereeb College, part of the Aleppo Free University that offers fields of study such as human medicine, agricultural engineering, and other sciences. There’s also the Nasib nursing faculty, an independent faculty associated with the opposition local government’s ministry of health. It is funded by medical NGOs and healthcare institutions.

These colleges and institutions offer a formal educational alternative to students who would like to continue their studies and work in the rebel-held areas. While the certificates issued by these colleges are not internationally recognised, the colleges are trying to solve this problem by cooperating with Malaysian and European universities that would allow Syrian students to study abroad, no matter how hard it may be to get out of the country.

Vocational education

Many vocational and management training centres have emerged in Daraa province to meet the demands of youth who want to go to university and continue their studies. These centres offer specialised courses in fields such as management, vocational training or computers and help graduates find employment in their fields.

These centres are popular because they offer youth a way to education and employment while requiring no identification papers that may be hard to provide. These courses usually train applicants in business studies in a few months, combining theoretical and practical projects.

The director of Raya centre for training in Daraa Usama al Najjar says they have trained about 700 students since the centre was established two years ago; many of these trainees have an advantage when they seek employment  after graduating from these courses.

The increasing popularity of these centres is likely to lead many towns in Daraa province to set up training centres for youth who hope to continue their education, even if the subjects are not necessarily academic. Many Syrian organisations that are interested in training students have started projects inside Syria that target young people in order to qualify them for the job market.

Translated from the Arabic by TRT World staff