Gender and education in Syria

• In Event: Syria: Implementing the Idarah Program

Proposal

While different countries and communities experience varying challenges in making education accessible for all children, gender assessment tools can provide a deeper understanding of the underlying causes of a lack of equitable access to quality education, which is even more crucial in a conflict.

Under the program, Idarah worked with Navanti to conduct a gender and education assessment to examine barriers to girls’ and boys’ education, and barriers to women working at the managerial level at the Education Directorate (ED) and its assemblies (EAs), as well as at the headmistress level, given that the gender balance between employed females and males becomes significantly skewed above the teacher level where women and men are employed at roughly the same numbers. Between 08 May and 09 June 2017, Navanti conducted a total of 121 interviews in al-Atarib, A’zaz, and ‘Uthmaniyah in Aleppo Province; Idlib City and Ma’arat al-Nu’man in Idlib Province; and Duma in Rif Dimashq Province.

This presentation will focus on the findings regarding general barriers to students, such as, security and lack of transportation and fear of attack on the way to school, or while at school. As well as, general findings of barriers women working as Headmistresses or at the ED/EA, which included cultural conservatism. The presentation will also focus on the design of the assessment, the recommendations for both implementation of education programs, further research still needed, and initial recommendations Idarah incorporated into programming.

Author

• Michele Bradford, Chemonics International