For the past four years, the focus of many international organizations interested in educating Syrian youth has been on refugees, official and unofficial.
But the reality is that far more Syrian youth are displaced inside Syria than are refugees. These displaced youth are shut out from educational opportunities or attending educational institutions that, while persisting courageously in their work, have depleted resources and are often operating with half the faculty members that they had before the war broke out.
Al-Fanar Media, the British Council, and the American University of Beirut’s Issam Fares Institute convened a workshop on May 2 in Beirut with attendees from Syria and from a variety of international organizations interested in helping Syrian youth. Here we present a report that can be downloaded, in either English or Arabic, that sums up some workshop presentations about Syrian higher education and offers recommendations about politically neutral ways that Syrians and outsiders might collaborate in helping youth in Syria get better access to education. The report begins with an executive summary and key recommendations.
Participants hope the workshop will be a first step toward identifying solutions. The partner organizations that created the workshop also expect these discussions to be the first in a continuing series of conversations between those working in Syrian education, Syrian youth, and outside organizations.
