‘I want to continue to study’: barriers to secondary education for Syrian refugee children in Jordan
Human Rights Watch
Highlights
International donors and countries hosting Syrian refugees have pledged to prevent a lost generation by ensuring access to education for refugee children. But as the Syria conflict enters its tenth year, secondary-school-age boys and girls have been left behind.
In Jordan, where there are around 233,000 school-age Syrian refugee children, enrollment rates collapse from almost 87 percent at the compulsory, primary level, to just 25 to 30 percent by the end of secondary school (classes 11 and 12), and the enrollment gap with Jordanian students widens dramatically.
“I Want to Continue to Study”: Barriers to Secondary Education for Syrian Refugee Children in Jordan, documents the ways that refugee children confront increasingly difficult obstacles to education the further they progress in school. Yet humanitarian education plans have not set specific enrollment or other goals for secondary education, and international donors have not provided any substantial support targeting this age group. Education programs for out-of-school children ages 12 to 17 are reaching only a small fraction of children in need.
This report urges Jordanian authorities, international donors and humanitarian agencies to dramatically increase access to quality secondary education for Syrian refugee children, in line with the human rights obligation to ensure access to quality, secondary school without discrimination for all
