Attachments
55,600 children attended accelerated education programmes
17,220 children attended homework cafés
84 university scholarships granted for refugee students
Context
The negative impact of the crisis in Syria on the protection and well-being of internally displaced, returnee, host community, and refugee children is significant. Access to and quality of education is severely limited across the country, with many schools destroyed in addition to a severe shortage of teachers. The damage to schools has resulted in an acute need for additional learning spaces throughout the country for children from the refugee, internally displaced, returnee, and host communities.
DAFI scholarships
The DAFI (Albert Einstein German Academic Refugee Initiative) scholarship programme offers qualified refugee and returnee students the possibility to earn an undergraduate degree in their country of asylum or home country. In Syria, the DAFI programme supports refugees’ university studies by covering the annual tuition fees. For the 2022-2023 academic year, in partnership with the Ministry of Higher Education, UNHCR supported 84 refugee students enrolled in Syrian public universities. Following the advocacy with DAFI team to grant slots for refugee students, 25 new slots were allocated for Syria operation in 2024.
Accelerated learning programmes
Accelerated learning programmes (remedial, catch-up, and summer classes) support refugee, internally displaced and returnee children to prepare for mid-year and final exams. The accelerated learning programmes also support out-of-school children to re-enrol in the formal education system. During the reporting period, 55,600 children attended accelerated education programmes, assisting them to catch-up on missed classes and to re-enter school.
Homework cafés
UNHCR provides remedial classes and facilitates homework cafés for children visiting community centres. By the end of December 2023, a total of 17,220 children attended homework café activities, with teachers assisting them in completing their homework.
Education cash grant
UNHCR completed the education cash grant distribution for 5,712 refugee and asylum-seeker children (2,850 males, 2,862 females) whose ages fall between 5 to 18 years in different governorates. In 2023, UNHCR provided the education grant as unconditional cash assistance. This is based on the rights-based approach, as refugees and asylum-seekers are eligible to attend school according to their age. This shift also aims to address some challenges which were observed during the verification exercise conducted in 2022. The challenges included, among others, overwhelming transport cost, access issue to UNHCR premises and delays in delivery of the grant.
The grant was distributed through cash over the counter modality in which primary school students received an amount of 400,000 SYP (US$ 61.54) while secondary school students received an amount of 650,000 SYP (US$ 100). The provision of education grant contributes to the retention and enrolment of children in Syrian schools in light of the increasing financial pressure on refugee and asylum seeker families.