Over 1,000 academics and professionals from nearly 60 institutions in the field of education, mostly based in Arab countries, have called for a common curriculum for Syrian migrant children. The experts, gathered for the two-day International Conference for Syrian Education in Istanbul, pressing on Sunday that the issue of Syrian children's education needs to be solved as soon as possible.
Ahmed Natuf, the conference's spokesman, told reporters that nearly half of the 1.5 million school-age Syrian migrant children abroad have no access to formal education, while the remaining are being educated in various curriculums in the countries they took shelter in. Urging the hosting governments and the NGOs that provide education to refugees to cooperate with each other, Natuf called for the creation of a non-ideological "common curriculum based on human rights and gender equality."
He stressed that Syria's national identity should be protected in such a curriculum.
Ercan Demirci, Turkey's deputy education undersecretary, stated, "[Syrian] children need to be integrated into the education system where they live, but this should be done without losing their essence." Addressing the conference, he said there are nearly 850,000 school-age Syrian children in Turkey, with half a million enrolled in public schools. He added that the remaining would be schooled in the coming years as Turkey is arranging a program to add 200,000 more children to the system next year.
