ANKARA — During last eight months Turkey has rebuilt more than 400 damaged schools in Syria enabling more than 152,000 children to continue their education.
According to Turkish official Anatolia news agency, as part of Operation Euphrates Shield operation, Turkey’s National Education Ministry launched a massive educational campaign for Syrian children and re-build a total of 458 schools in Aleppo’s Jarabulus, Al-Bab, Cobanbey and Azez regions.
Turkey’s ministry’s Director Education, Ali Riza Altunel was quoted by Anadolu Agency as saying: “I believe the number of students will increase to around 170,000 by the end of the first semester.”
Altunel said the ministry had been running its program since March, after Operation of Euphrates Shield was successfully wrapped up by the Turkish military.
“There were enough numbers of primary and middle schools, but a very small amount of high schools,” Altunel said. “In March, we only managed to continue with lessons in only three schools. By the end of June, the numberincreased to 103 schools.”
The director said children in the rebuilt regions were “extremely happy with Turkey’s contributions,” with Syrian children painting banners saying they continue their education “no matter what”. The director said children in the region were unable to receive a proper education in the last five years.
“So, we launched a ‘compensation program’ for children to make up for the lack of the education,” he said. “We are working hard to graduate children from elementary schools for them to continue with middle school.”
Syria is still facing a vicious civil war-like situation since 2011 and ongoing violence have since then killed, hundreds of thousands of people and millions have been displaced.