Half of Syrian refugee children in Lebanon are out of school
None
BEIRUT - More than half of the nearly 500,000 Syrian children registered as refugees in Lebanon are missing out on formal education and a government campaign to increase enrolment has failed to reach its target, Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday.
There are more than 1 million Syrian refugees in Lebanon, making up a quarter of the country's population. Since Syria's civil war began in 2011, nearly 5 million Syrians have fled, including to Turkey, Europe and Jordan.
Lebanon's education ministry, supported by UN and international donors, launched a campaign last year to provide schooling for 200,000 Syrian children. But Human Rights Watch said that nearly 50,000 of those places went unused.
Many Syrian children failed to enroll or dropped out during the year because of inability to afford transport to school or school supplies, a report released by the New York-based watchdog said. Others were deterred by arbitrary enrolment requirements imposed by individual schools, corporal punishment and language barriers, with classes taught in English and French as under the Lebanese system.
