Keeping poor Syrian children in school

By Lina Sinjab
BBC News, Damascus

Mohammad has dropped out of school to earn $4 a day on a building site

Thirteen-year-old Mohammad no longer joins the morning walk to school with the other schoolchildren.

His morning starts at 6am. He is now out earning money for his family. Before the end of his preparatory schooling, he started working in construction workshop, leaving behind a dream of an education and becoming a doctor.

Parents and five children are gathered around the wood burner in the 3m sq room that makes up almost half of their mud-built house.

Kassem Motlak, Mohammed's 45-year-old father, works for the municipality as a cleaner. He earns around US $220 (£143) a month, and barely manages to feed his family.

"I had to take Mohammad out of school. I can't pay the expenses any more," Mr Motlak said bitterly.

Mohammad brings in $3 a day. He is not the only working child in the family.

His elder sister Zainab, 15, also works at a chocolate factory, earning $4. She quit school two years ago.

Legal framework

Education in Syria is free up to the end of preparatory school, for children aged six to 12, and it is compulsory.

CHILDREN AND EDUCATION 96% of school age children are registered at a school, but up to 18% drop out Child labour: 4% of children Child marriage: 13% Youth literacy: Male 95%, female 92% 8.8 million Syrians are under 18 out of a population of about 22 million 17 % of Syrians use the internet

But recent statistics show about 18% of school children drop out. This is double the average for counties in the Middle East and North Africa.

Syria is on the right track in terms of legal framework regarding child rights, labour and banning violence against children according to the UN's children's fund, Unicef.

But monitoring implementation of these policies is hard and a lot still needs to be done.

The Syrian government is trying to offer incentives to people to keep their children in school.

The ministry of education have recently started a program, with Unicef, of paying $1 daily for each child kept in school by families in certain deprived areas.

Deprived areas

Laws and programmes to keep children in schools may not be enough to improve children's rights in Syria. Some argue that society needs to change as well as the educational system.

Some Syrian families cannot send their children to school when they could be earning an income

Unicef is working to provide support for schools, in co-operation with the ministry of education. So far, they have provided support for around 100 schools by providing training for teachers and help upgrading the infrastructure.

Unicef's chief of mission in Syria Sherazade Boualia says the agency is running a programme to support schools in some of the most deprived areas in the country.

"We are looking at schools through this from a comprehensive perspective - the structure of the school, the way it looks, the sanitation, water, clean classrooms, the quality of teachers themselves," she says.

Fun learning

In recent years, many civil organisations and non-governmental organisations have been established to try to improve the situation of children in Syria.

Massar is one of them. It is part of a larger NGO project; Syria Trust for Development.

An artist's impression of what the Discovery Centre will look like in central Damascus

The non-profit project, funded by government grant and private donations, started almost five years ago. It aims to provide alternative, non-traditional, means for children to gain an education and skills.

Masa al-Mufti, a director at Massar, says the programme is designed to reach all Syrian children.

"Massar builds for a long-term development, which aims to foster citizenship and capacity building for children. It introduces a new concept, which is the informal learning, so children will have another space where they can have fun and enjoy while learning," says Ms Mufti.

'Effective citizens'

Massar is aiming to build a regional Child Discovery Centre in each of Syria's 13 administrative divisions - a unique project for Syria.

In the heart of the capital Damascus, Massar is building a cultural centre for children activities in a public park. The building will take the shape of a Damascene Rose and aims, eventually to receive 500,000 visitors a year.

The project is designed to offer students a more engaging experience than traditional education.

It hopes to allow children to be more creative, to stimulate individual thinking and to build team spirit.

"Massar aims to engage children, not only to enhance their skills through education but to enable them to become the agent for change in their community and effective citizens of the future," says Masa al-Mufti.