Published : 08-04-2017
UNRWA figures unveiled at the Brussels conference have shown that 70 per cent of all the Agency’s schools in Syria are inoperative. This is due to school buildings being destroyed, damaged, rendered inaccessible by fighting, or because they have been turned into shelters housing the displaced.
“It is both humbling and inspiring that UNRWA students in Syria are outperforming their peers around the region,” said Pierre Krähenbühl, the UNRWA Commissioner-General who came straight to Brussels from a three-day mission to Aleppo.
“I saw first-hand the appalling destruction of education and other infrastructure. Children in Syria are witnessing hour by hour what no child should have to see in an entire lifetime,” he added.
UNRWA runs schools for half a million Palestine refugee children in Jordan, Lebanon, the occupied Palestinian territory and Syria.
Every three years, UNRWA students across the Middle East in grades 4 and 8 are assessed in Arabic and mathematics. The latest UNRWA report found that students in Syria were overall the best performing. For example, grade 4 students in Arabic averaged 65 per cent, and in grade 8 the average was 55 per cent.
UNRWA students in Syria were also the most gender-equitable in terms of their academic achievement across the region and on average had the lowest cumulative dropout rates.
Speaking in Brussels, Pierre Krähenbühl again called on all parties to the conflict to respect their obligations under international law to protect civilians.
The devastating impact of the war in Syria has not diminished the academic achievement of students in UN-run schools, according to figures released by the agency at the Syria conference in Brussels.
Dozens of schoolchildren were pronounced dead in government onslaughts on UNRWA-run schools in Syria.
UNRWA figures unveiled at the Brussels conference have shown that 70 per cent of all the Agency’s schools in Syria are inoperative. This is due to school buildings being destroyed, damaged, rendered inaccessible by fighting, or because they have been turned into shelters housing the displaced.
“It is both humbling and inspiring that UNRWA students in Syria are outperforming their peers around the region,” said Pierre Krähenbühl, the UNRWA Commissioner-General who came straight to Brussels from a three-day mission to Aleppo.
“I saw first-hand the appalling destruction of education and other infrastructure. Children in Syria are witnessing hour by hour what no child should have to see in an entire lifetime,” he added.
UNRWA runs schools for half a million Palestine refugee children in Jordan, Lebanon, the occupied Palestinian territory and Syria.
Every three years, UNRWA students across the Middle East in grades 4 and 8 are assessed in Arabic and mathematics. The latest UNRWA report found that students in Syria were overall the best performing. For example, grade 4 students in Arabic averaged 65 per cent, and in grade 8 the average was 55 per cent.
UNRWA students in Syria were also the most gender-equitable in terms of their academic achievement across the region and on average had the lowest cumulative dropout rates.
Speaking in Brussels, Pierre Krähenbühl again called on all parties to the conflict to respect their obligations under international law to protect civilians.
The devastating impact of the war in Syria has not diminished the academic achievement of students in UN-run schools, according to figures released by the agency at the Syria conference in Brussels.
Dozens of schoolchildren were pronounced dead in government onslaughts on UNRWA-run schools in Syria.
