Jordan: Secondary School Gap for Syrian Refugee Kids

(Brussels, June 26, 2020) – The majority of Syrian refugee children in Jordan don’t have the chance to go to secondary school, close to a decade after Syrian refugees began arriving, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. International donors and humanitarian agencies should work with Jordan and other countries hosting Syrian refugees at this year’s Supporting the Future of Syria and the Region conference on June 30, 2020 to urgently improve access to quality, secondary education for Syrian refugee children.

The 61-page report, “‘I Want to Continue to Study’: Barriers to Secondary Education for Syrian Refugee Children in Jordan,” documents increasingly difficult obstacles to education the further Syrian refugee children progress in school, with enrollment rates collapsing from nearly 90 percent in primary classes to just 25 to 30 percent in secondary school, according to governmental and United Nations data. With UN support, Jordan has created humanitarian education plans for Syrian refugees that aim to increase enrollment overall, but without specific secondary-school enrollment goals. Few foreign donors support secondary education. Informal education programs hosted by nongovernmental groups only reach a tiny fraction of children, Human Rights Watch found.