Barriers to Education for Syrian refugee children in Lebanon

Abstract

The conflict in Syria is one of the largest humanitarian crises in modern history. With many Syrian families fleeing the resettle in neighboring Lebanon, Lebanon’s education system has become overwhelmed. In this research I will describe how Syrian families and community stakeholders experienced education in Lebanon and highlight barriers to education, suggesting potential interventions to ensure that the right to education is upheld. It shows the challenges that Syrian families face in seeking education for their children. As mentioned, this research study aims to speak about refugee Syrian children in Lebanon, especially when we are talking about Education. The study will be conducted through a combination of research and an interview. I will interview my Syrian student. Plus, I will conduct surveys to explore and discover new topics. This study will help us to know and to increase the demand for education which protects refugee children and strengthens community resilience. It also empowers by giving refugees the knowledge and skills to live productive, fulfilling, and independent lives. This research is very important to talk about today because it’s very interesting to know what refugees need most and how we could help them. Like, need of food for babies, clothes and shoes, school supplies, special items for winter.

Purpose
The purpose of the research is to widen education opportunities and providing Syrian students to complete basic education by psychological support. At the same time, it shows the importance of education in the lives of Syrian families both in Syrian before the war, in their current contexts of displacement in Lebanon, and in their future hopes and dreams for their children.

Introduction
Approximately 1.5 million Syrian refugees reside in Lebanon. Children make up about half of the refugees in Lebanon. Causes for the crisis of the refugees can include war and civil war, human rights violations, environment and climate issues, and economic hardship. Many kids haven’t attended school in years or never received a formal education. For the millions of Syrian refugee children who have been impacted by the crisis, education offers a path to a better future. Lebanon has lost an estimated $13.1 billion in revenue because of the war in Syria and the cost of hosting refugees, and the flood of refugees has put a pressure on public infrastructure and services like health, energy, water, waste collection, and education. The $1.87 billion Lebanon issue Response Plan, created to alleviate the country’s refugee issue, received only 62.8 percent of its funding in 2015. Since Lebanon’s public education system was already subpar before to the Syria conflict, most refugees relied on it. Only 30% of Lebanese pupils attended public schools, which had high rates of dropouts and grade repeat. The number of school-aged Syrian refugees greatly outnumbers the 249,494 Lebanese children registered in public schools in 2015-2016, adding to the strain on public schools caused by the inflow of Syrian refugees. Reaching All Children with Education (RACE) is a policy that Lebanon introduced in 2014. As a result, by the end of the 2015–2016 academic year, 158,321 Syrian children were enrolled in Lebanon’s public schools. To register 440,000 Syrian children in formal education by the 2020–2021 school year, Lebanon developed the RACE II plan in 2016.
Too many Syrian children are still not in school, despite these efforts. Lebanon’s generous policies for school enrolment are undercut by strict laws that hinder most refugees from establishing legal status or finding employment. Many families live in poverty and worry about being arrested if they are seen looking for work or working. Frequently, they depend on their kids working instead of going to school since they are unable to pay for school-related expenses like transportation and supplies.
Additional enrollment requirements imposed by individual school administrators, peer bullying and harassment, safety concerns, corporal punishment, lack of access to sanitary facilities, and classes taught in foreign languages with inadequate language support are additional factors that discourage Syrians from enrolling and result in dropouts. Girls, older kids, and kids with disabilities all confront unique enrollment challenges. Plus, there are still not enough classrooms in public schools for Syrian refugees, despite an increase in the number of spots available. Less than half of the 200,000 spots needed for the 495,910 Syrian refugees of school age who were registered with UNHCR at the start of the year were made available for Syrians in public schools. However, not all those openings were filled since even in places where there are openings, children are unable to attend because schools with openings are not often situated in areas of need.
1- Education protects children and young people who have fled forced labor, child marriage, sexual exploitation, and forced enlistment into armed groups. Education increases a community’s capacity for resiliency.
2- Education empowers refugees by giving refugees with the knowledge and skills they need to lead successful, happy lives on their own.
3- Education enlightens as they work to rebuild their lives and communities, refugees are given the opportunity to learn about themselves and the world.
The most common difficulties refugees face are: language barriers, housing problems, access to medical services, cultural differences, raising children, prejudice and racism. Urban regions may have water and electricity shortages because of the refugee inflow, raising costs for both the refugees and the host society. Other effects include the overloading of services like health and education, a rise in traffic and pollution, and rivalry for jobs and housing.
Literature
Lebanon has seen three extraordinarily challenging years, which have had a negative impact on children’s education. In addition to the overstretching of the public education system brought on by the protracted nature of the Syria crisis, learning has been severely hampered by the deteriorating economic condition coupled with the financial collapse, the political unrest, and the COVID-19 outbreak. At the level of the individual learner, families in Lebanon who have been severely damaged by the economic crisis and rising poverty are increasingly unable to afford rising transportation fees or school supplies, which prevents them from enrolling their children in schools or causes many children to drop out. Children who are refugees confront additional obstacles to their education, such as a lack of civil documentation, limited access to formal education, and space constraints in public institutions. The effects of the economic crisis are also being felt by teachers, who routinely go on strike over pay and are very unmotivated to work in their field. In more and more public schools across the nation, it is becoming impossible to sustainably cover operating expenses, such as the price of fuel and instructional materials. Strikes and school closings had a significant impact on the quality of education delivered and slowed down planned initiatives and reforms, including those related to early childhood education, learning outcomes, new curricula, efficiency-improving rehabilitation projects, national scaling up of teacher performance standards, etc. This has led to widening learning gaps and a reduction in the importance placed on education. The UNHCR concentrates on community initiatives that seek to provide continuity in education for refugee children. This is made possible by identifying the children and teens who are not in school, by offering counselling and awareness programmer, and by finding community-based solutions for those who are at danger of dropping out. It is also made possible by the provision of retention support activities like homework groups facilitated by community volunteers, increased parental involvement through parent community groups, and community volunteers assigned to second shift schools to prevent violence and refer child protection cases and kids at risk of dropping out to specialized agencies/services, all of which are aimed at increasing school retention.
It’s a good thing to ask what’s happening in Syria right now? In early 2023, Turkish-backed militias carried out military attacks against Kurdish militias, using tanks and artillery.

Methodology
This study aims to paint a clearer picture of these out of school children (OOSC) and better understand their profiles and the barriers they face to strengthen UNHCR’s planning for the next academic year. The findings of this assessment will feed into the design of the strategies to enroll them in programmed adapted for their age and needs. It will also call to attention the need for additional research on the out-of-school population to have more effective targeting of these beneficiaries. It’s very important for us to know about the refugee crisis. Do you know why? It is because, those refugees have never chosen to be born in war-affected countries, they do deserve a better life, a happy one.

Literature review
Research review on refugee Syrian children in Lebanon, with a focus on Education.
Interview
Online interview with my Syrian student (through WhatsApp) which she will be asked some question and about her life in Lebanon as a refugee.

Data analysis
It’s a mixed combination of qualitative and quantitative methods which involves collecting and analyzing qualitative and quantitative data and answering the research question.
Research question
Do refugee Syrian have unique needs and if so, what are they and how can be addressed?
Data collection analysis
The discussion with my student took approximately 5 minutes and she was well-disciplined and answered the questions in a well-behaved manner. She was very exiting while speaking and expressing her feelings, which was so difficult to her.

Conclusion
After talking about this study, hopefully to understand the importance of education because if you don’t have education, you don’t have a future, especially as a refugee. To ensure that Syrian refugees are aware of the educational options accessible to them, it is crucial to develop more effective and creative outreach strategies. Additionally, more funds must be made available to address specific issues, such as transportation.

Findings
The main findings from the Out of School Children profiling are presented in this section of the report, which also includes an overview of OOSC enrollment, density, and numbers by governorate and an analysis of the main obstacles Syrian children face in enrolling in LES, as reported by stakeholder.
A presentation of findings related to shelter and other sectors of humanitarian assistance, particularly regarding tenure security and access to land, access to sanitation facilities, and livelihoods and income sources. interviews, focus group discussions, primary and secondary data collection and review, as well as recent education assessments conducted in Lebanon.

Discussion
Many reports and assessments have identified lack of capacity in public schools, transportation costs, language of instruction, tuition fees, bullying, child’s safety concerns of Syrian parents, and limited outreach to children over the age of 10 and vulnerable families as some of the main barriers to education.
There is much can be learned from the experience of refugees, such as their fortitude and bravery in the face of difficulty, their devotedness to friends and family, their inclination to split the burden of supporting those in need in their local area. Everyone of us should help refugee families by donating clothes, money, food… cash donations are the most efficient way for humanitarian organizations like the IRC to aid Syrian refugees and others in need. Hoping that everyone will donate right now to support families and children in this unprecedented crisis.
Plus, a solution for refugees’ children is needed like opening up safe routes to sanctuary for refugees. I think it’s one of the most important solutions to work on it. That means allowing people to reunite with their relatives, and giving refugees visas so they don’t have to spend their life savings and risk drowning to reach safety.

Conclusion
Financial constraints were cited by respondents as one of the primary reasons why kids don’t go to school in Lebanon. This covers not only the expense of tuition but also the cost of travel and the family’s basic requirements. Although not stated explicitly, the frequent inability of Syrian refugees to pay tuition.
As the main cause of non-enrolment, this suggests that ignorance of the educational resources available is probably what is causing this and several other hurdles. Effective tactics like text message campaigns on mobile phones and educational Refugee Outreach Volunteers could be useful ways to spread the word among Syrians about the existence of schemes supporting their children’s education.
Insufficient enrollment in public schools, transport expenses, the language of instruction, tuition costs, bullying, child’s parental safety concerns regarding Syrian refugees, a lack of outreach to children over the age of ten and families with vulnerable children have all been cited as major obstacles to education.
An urgent situation exists because so many refugee children are not attending school. The right to an education is fundamental. All children in Lebanon have a legal right to free and obligatory elementary education as well as equal access to secondary school under international law. This includes Syrian refugee children. Education is also essential for preventing childhood relocation, which can endure for the full year. Children are less likely to complete their education if they are absent from school for an extended period. Syrian refugees in Lebanon are going above and beyond to make sure their kids receive an education. To pay for paperwork, school supplies, and transportation, parents have moved closer to schools where their kids might be admitted. They have also gotten further into debt. One refugee briefly returned her children to Syria because she was unable to enroll them in school in Lebanon. “It was an easy decision,” she claimed. In order to teach the younger children in her refugee camp what she remembered from her first grade class in Syria, a 9-year-old girl who was unable to enrol in school after arriving in Lebanon set up a little blackboard under a tree. Lebanon and the international community should work to prevent a situation where more than 250,000 Syrian children are deprived of an education, making them less able to live in peace with their Lebanese hosts, support Lebanon’s economy, or contribute to Syria’s eventual reconstruction.
To meet the educational needs of Syrian refugees, Lebanon needs significantly more international financial assistance. This assistance should go towards expanding and renovating public schools, making investments in high-quality education, fully integrating children with disabilities, training and hiring more teachers, and funding school transportation. However, this will not necessarily eliminate the challenges Syrian children have in attending school. In order to ensure that refugee children can enrol in elementary school, continue through secondary school, and have a viable option of pursuing higher education or vocational training and earning a living, Lebanon must also modify regulations that have restricted children’s access to education. Additionally, it should make sure that the implementation of its generous enrollment policy is proper and that those who administer physical punishment are held accountable. In order to ensure that non-formal education is of a minimum standard and that students have a recognized route to formal education, the Education Ministry should support it, if only temporarily, until formal education is available to all children in the nation. By modifying its conditions for residency and allowing those whose status has expired to regularize, the government should enable Syrians to preserve their legal standing. Additionally, it should give Syrians access to the labour market, notably by allowing trained Syrian teachers to teach children who are refugees.

References
https://reliefweb.int/report/lebanon/barriers-education-syrian-refugee-children-lebanon-november-2014
https://www.wvi.org/publications/research/lebanon/barriers-and-facilitators-refugee-childrens-education-lebanon
https://www.wvi.org/stories/lebanon/chance-education-future-unlocked
https://www.nrc.no/resources/reports/the-obstacle-course-barriers-to-education-for-syrian-refugee-children-in-lebanon/