About four million students in Syria attended school on Sunday for the first day of the new academic year.
In Suweida province, around 100,000 students headed to school. Head of the province’s education directorate Haitham Naeem said that 555 schools have been supplied with necessities for primary and secondary education throughout the province, adding that repairs and maintenance in 17 schools have been accomplished in cooperation with the United Nations Children’s Fund.
Naeem pointed out that the 47,000 school bags provided by UNICEF will be distributed among students from the first grade to fourth grade, while there are ongoing efforts to include fifth and sixth grade students in the distribution process.
In turn, head of the Hama education directorate Yahya Abd al-Ghani affirmed that 275 health workers have been distributed throughout the province to maintain a healthy and clean environment for schools.
Around 84,000 students and over 3,000 teachers began classes in 181 schools in Quneitra province, where the directorate completed maintenance on 57 schools located throughout safe areas at a cost of 266 million Syrian pounds.
In Homs, head of the province’s directorate Ahmad Ibrahim and UNICEF representative Faz Shah paid a visit a to number of schools in the city and distributed bags to some of the 350,000 students who attended their first day.
Ibrahim said that the education process is going excellently in all the province’s schools.
Head of the directorate in Tartous, Abdelkarim Harba, said that the education board carried out maintenance work in 135 schools at a cost of 74 million pounds, adding that in the 2015-2016 school year the province absorbed 55,000 displaced students.
Meanwhile in Hassakeh, the directorate said that 200,000 students attended classes at around 2,400 schools for all ages.
It’s worth mentioning that the previous 2015-2016 school year saw around 15,000 schools receive over 4 million students, while the number of workers in the education sector was over 300,000 throughout all provinces.
This article was edited by The Syrian Observer. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
