Damascus-Sana
Syria participated in the virtual high-level online meeting organized by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) entitled (one year after the spread of the Coronavirus ... giving priority to the recovery of the education process to avoid a generational catastrophe) within the axis of keeping schools open and giving priority to teachers and their support .
The meeting, which aims to provide a platform for mutual learning via the Internet, in order to form a comprehensive educational recovery process informed by knowledge and evidence, included three axes: keeping schools open, giving priority to and support for teachers ... school and university dropout, learning loss..and digital transformation and the future of education.
The Minister of Education, Dr. Darem Tabbah, said in a speech during the meeting ... that (Syrian youth are among the most educated groups in the Middle East region, as Syria has achieved an almost complete enrollment rate in primary education and a high rate of secondary education completion), indicating that the conditions of the terrorist war have led to More than two million Syrian children outside school (inside and outside Syria) and others have been exposed to the risk of dropping out and losing a fifth of the faculty and educational supervisors, in addition to one out of five schools being damaged and destroyed, which caused years of retreat in students ’educational achievement.
Tabbaa explained that the total number of schools in Syria amounted to 13,115 schools, and the number of government school buildings that were partially damaged but used 11,390 schools that were partially damaged but unused 1.218 and the number of destroyed buildings was 459 and schools used for non-educational purposes (residence) were 26, indicating that in mid-March of last year they were closed. Schools as part of the closure to contain the spread of the Corona pandemic, and they reopened on the 15th of last September with an intensive teaching schedule to compensate for educational losses.
The Minister of Education pointed out the gaps and challenges that the terrorist war imposed on Syria to a large extent on the public opinion of society, as opinions about the closure of schools began to appear after the Corona pandemic, which made the Ministry of Education in the position of defending the continuation of the education process in the face of these views as well as false and misleading information about The spread of infection and the role of schools in this raised the issue of school closures, referring to the school health protocol adopted by the ministry to confront the spread of the Coronavirus, in accordance with the standards of the Ministry of Health.