RAQQA, Syria (North Press) – Adnan Muhammad, 40, is saddened by the fact that his son is now 12 years old and has yet to receive any formal education – a common fate among IDPs languishing in makeshift camps in Raqqa Governorate in northern Syria.
The Syrian civil war, now as old as Muhammad’s son, has had a devastating impact on both the opportunities for education as well as their quality. It has left a generation of children stranded and often unable to access their right to learn.
In Raqqa alone, thousands of children in makeshift camps are illiterate and run the risk of never acquiring a basic education.
Muhammad, an IDP from Deir ez-Zor, eastern Syria, living in the Hatash makeshift camp, 35 km north of Raqqa, wants to teach his children how to read and write. However, there are no schools in his camp and he is unable to enroll them in one of the neighboring villages’ schools, as he lacks identification documents.
Since the outbreak of the war in Syria, many school buildings have been damaged, destroyed or are being used as temporary shelters, leaving thousands of Syrian children out of school.
Muhammad said that an NGO launched an educational project in his camp. He attempted to register his five children, but only one was accepted. However, the project was suspended after three months.
“Educating children in the camps is a big issue, and attention must be paid to it, because many families have lost their identity papers,” he noted.
“Each child in our camp has the right to receive a proper education to spare them from illiteracy. I did not receive proper schooling, I do not want my children to face the same destiny,” the father added.
The residents of Raqqa’s makeshift camps complain that education has been sidelined, and that not enough is being done to allocate schools to the camps’ children, given the difficult conditions they face in sending their children to nearby schools.
Muhammad demanded that schools be opened inside the camp, since the camp’s children are often bullied by the children of the villagers at local schools.
Abdullah al-Faraj, 22, an IDP in al-Yunani camp, roughly 1 km south of Raqqa, was unable to enroll his siblings in school due to their lack of documentation.
When al-Faraj tried to register his brothers in the school of al-Kasrat, a nearby village, he was asked for his ‘expat card’. Although he had brought all the required documents, al-Faraj said, they refused to register the children.
‘Expat cards’ are identification documents provided to all those who move to areas under the control of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) from other regions of Syria. They are supposed to ease bureaucratic procedures.
Al-Faraj added that a local organization opened something akin to a kindergarten at his camp, but its employees did not teach the children properly and only attended to them for two hours per day.
“I hope to open a school in the camp, we all want to educate our children,” al-Faraj noted.
At the al-Hakomiya makeshift camp, Ibrahim al-Hassan, 65, stressed the importance of educating children and opening schools within the camp. A local organization opened an education center at his camp, but abandoned the project after only six months.
“Education is a fundamental human right for all children,” he said.
Al-Hassan expressed his readiness to donate in order to establish a school at the camp.
According to al-Hassan, about 800 children in the camp are being deprived of an education. A whole generation has lost years of schooling.