Thousands of Syrian Kurdish refugee children in Duhok camp miss out on months of school
DUHOK, Kurdistan Region – Refugees in the Kurdistan Region's Duhok province have urged officials to ramp up efforts to open schools at their host camp, where thousands of Syrian Kurdish children currently have no access to formal education.
Bardarash camp currently hosts 3,976 children and teenagers who have fled northern Syria since Turkey launched Operation Peace Spring in October. With no scholastic facilities available at the camp, children have missed out on several months of schooling.
"I would like to go back to school. I do not want to miss this year. I am in grade five," would-be pupil Ibrahim Khalil said.
"We do not want our future to be wasted," said Khalil, who told Rudaw he dreams of becoming a doctor, engineer or a teacher.
"I am in grade six and we have not gone to school yet this year," said Mirav Barzan, another child living at the camp.
Parents are apprehensive about their children continuing to miss out on an education.
"Our children go on the streets and run after vehicles. But when they are at school, we are not worried about them," Rawshan Bango, a mother said. "School…teaches them how to succeed."
To stop the educational gap, Bardarash camp officials are building a primary and high school for the camp’s children, in collaboration with local and international organizations.
An official from the Barzani Charity Foundation, a local aid agency supervising the camp, said it is doing its best to help open and ready the schools.
"We are in the process of building two schools, one primary and one secondary," said Botan Salahaddin Ahmed, senior camp manager for the BCF.
"With the help of the Duhok Education Department, we are trying to prepare the studying mechanisms for the primary school and provide teachers for them," Ahmed said, adding they are doing their best "so they do not miss this school year."
The schools will be opened “in the near future,” Ahmed Zubair, representative of the Duhok Education Department told Rudaw on Monday, using equipment provided by UNICEF and the BCF.
Following research conducted by the province’s Education Department and other relevant organisations at other camps, the school will aim to provide a curriculum specific to the needs of students who had previously used a national curriculum of different language and content, according to Zubair.
“The majority of the students had studied in more than one language and on different curriculum and programs [in Syria]. It was a problem because the studying programs the Kurdistan Region follows is quite different," Zubair said.
"For example, last year we tried to implement Kurdish language programs for grade 1 pupils, but they were not interested in it. We did the same thing this year, again unfortunately, they were not interested. They prefer to study in Arabic language," Zubair added.
"Based on our previous experiences with Syrian refugees at Domiz 1 and Domiz 2 camp and other camps sheltering Syrians, we decided to provide the Kurdistan Region's studying programs in Arabic language."
The schools will be opened “in the near future,” Zubair said, using equipment provided by both UNICEF and the BCF.
According to KRG spokesperson Jotiar Adil, close to 20,000 refugees have fled to the Kurdistan Region from northeastern Syria. They continue to arrive, with 32 crossing the Sehela on Monday.
The Kurdistan Region currently hosts more than one million internally displaced people (IDPs) and refugees – 262,022 of whom are from Syria, according to the Kurdistan Region Joint Crisis Center's December 2019 report.
Translation by Zhelwan Z. Wali
Bardarash camp currently hosts 3,976 children and teenagers who have fled northern Syria since Turkey launched Operation Peace Spring in October. With no scholastic facilities available at the camp, children have missed out on several months of schooling.
"I would like to go back to school. I do not want to miss this year. I am in grade five," would-be pupil Ibrahim Khalil said.
"We do not want our future to be wasted," said Khalil, who told Rudaw he dreams of becoming a doctor, engineer or a teacher.
"I am in grade six and we have not gone to school yet this year," said Mirav Barzan, another child living at the camp.
Parents are apprehensive about their children continuing to miss out on an education.
"Our children go on the streets and run after vehicles. But when they are at school, we are not worried about them," Rawshan Bango, a mother said. "School…teaches them how to succeed."
To stop the educational gap, Bardarash camp officials are building a primary and high school for the camp’s children, in collaboration with local and international organizations.
An official from the Barzani Charity Foundation, a local aid agency supervising the camp, said it is doing its best to help open and ready the schools.
"We are in the process of building two schools, one primary and one secondary," said Botan Salahaddin Ahmed, senior camp manager for the BCF.
"With the help of the Duhok Education Department, we are trying to prepare the studying mechanisms for the primary school and provide teachers for them," Ahmed said, adding they are doing their best "so they do not miss this school year."
The schools will be opened “in the near future,” Ahmed Zubair, representative of the Duhok Education Department told Rudaw on Monday, using equipment provided by UNICEF and the BCF.
Following research conducted by the province’s Education Department and other relevant organisations at other camps, the school will aim to provide a curriculum specific to the needs of students who had previously used a national curriculum of different language and content, according to Zubair.
“The majority of the students had studied in more than one language and on different curriculum and programs [in Syria]. It was a problem because the studying programs the Kurdistan Region follows is quite different," Zubair said.
"For example, last year we tried to implement Kurdish language programs for grade 1 pupils, but they were not interested in it. We did the same thing this year, again unfortunately, they were not interested. They prefer to study in Arabic language," Zubair added.
"Based on our previous experiences with Syrian refugees at Domiz 1 and Domiz 2 camp and other camps sheltering Syrians, we decided to provide the Kurdistan Region's studying programs in Arabic language."
The schools will be opened “in the near future,” Zubair said, using equipment provided by both UNICEF and the BCF.
According to KRG spokesperson Jotiar Adil, close to 20,000 refugees have fled to the Kurdistan Region from northeastern Syria. They continue to arrive, with 32 crossing the Sehela on Monday.
Turkey, along with the Syrian proxy forces it backs, began Operation Peace Spring on October 9 in a bid to create a ‘safe zone’ free of the US-backed, Kurdish-led People’s Protection Units (YPG), considered by Ankara to be a terrorist organization. The area is to be resettled with 3,000,000 Syrian refugees, Turkey says, which Kurdish leaders say amounts to forced demographic change in the mixed Kurdish, Arab and Christian area.The number of #refugees from Northeast Syria to the Kurdistan Region since October has reached 19,083 so far, 32 of them crossing the Sehela border on Monday. The @Kurdistan Govt. and @JccKrg are making sure they get shelter and all assistance. pic.twitter.com/RP09Dfnx1S
— Jotiar Adil (@KRGSpokesperson) December 30, 2019
The Kurdistan Region currently hosts more than one million internally displaced people (IDPs) and refugees – 262,022 of whom are from Syria, according to the Kurdistan Region Joint Crisis Center's December 2019 report.
Translation by Zhelwan Z. Wali