Potential collective resistance to weaponization of education during the conflict in Northwest Syria

• In Event: Towards a Coherent, Rigorous and Comprehensive Body of Education Research Evidence for Uptake in Conflict and Crisis Settings

Proposal

The Syrian Civil War began in 2011 as a social movement against political oppression, governance failure, inequality, and marginalization, but was quickly militarized in response to the Syrian regime’s use of violence, collective punishment, politicization of identities, and violations of human rights, coupled with the intervention of regional and international powers (SCPR, 2023). Over 10 years later, children and adolescents continue to face devastating impacts of the conflict due to the deterioration of the education system, frequent disruptions of schooling, and attacks on schools leading to the destruction of 1,189 schools since 2011 (SCPR, 2020, 2018). As of 2019, 2.4 million school-aged children – 40% of whom were girls - were out of school and 1.6 million were at risk of dropping out. These estimates have increased since 2020 due to the impact of COVID-19 (UNICEF, 2021).
The Northwest has been the most impacted by the war, controlled by two non-state actors – the Syrian Interim Government (SiG – backed by Turkey) and the Salvation Army (backed by Jabhat Al-Nusra). Nearly 50% of the 4 million people in the region are IDPs, and poor governance combined with a severe lack of resources has put many at risk. The continued targeting of education facilities by the regime, and the lack of resources and education management and governance systems have excluded nearly half of the children in the region from formal education opportunities (SCPR, 2022), while the other half attend inconsistent and at times low-quality services provided by non-state actors. Despite these challenges, the education sector has developed promising initiatives, including calls for better treatment, support to teachers and participatory approaches to education governance led by civil society actors.
This presentation will share learnings from the Syria Country Scan carried out by Osman Consulting (OC) and the International Rescue Committee (IRC) as part of the Education Research in Conflict and Protracted Crisis (ERICC) programme. The country scan uses an interdisciplinary and participatory approach based on political economy, human rights, and capability frameworks to develop contextually relevant research agendas responding to the evidence needs of education stakeholders in the region from school systems, communities, civil society, humanitarian communities, and local governance bodies. The scan includes stakeholder mapping that identifies levels of engagement and influence of key education actors in the system, data-systems mapping to understand what types of data are gathered, how, by whom and for what purpose(s), an evidence review, a series of key informant interviews and workshops with an advisory committee to identify key education research priorities to guide the work.
Through this research agenda-setting process, Osman Consulting and IRC hope to discover the extent to which the protracted crisis in Syria has led to the deterioration of access to and quality and continuity of education, how education has been weaponized by actors in the crisis, and what practices and policies can be leveraged by learners, teachers, communities, civil society and governing bodies to resist oppression and establish a participatory and peace-centred education system that delivers quality education to all students in need.

Authors

• Rabie Nasser, Osman Consulting

• Bassel Akar, Lebanese Association for Educational Studies

• Ann Marie Carter, Osman Consulting