📚 Deir ez-Zor youth struggle as education system collapses

QAMISHLI, energy-cooperation-with-switzerland-and-jordan/" class="smart-internal-link" title="📰 Syria explores energy cooperation with Switzerland and Jordan">syria/" class="auto-internal-link">syria (North Press) – Years of war in Syria have shattered the country’s education system, leaving millions of children without access to learning and numerous young people without the skills needed for work. Schools once filled with students have turned into battlegrounds, shelters, or ruins — symbols of a generation deprived of its future. Since the onset of the crisis, thousands of schools across Syria have been destroyed or severely damaged. In Deir ez-Zor alone, out of 707 schools operating before 2011, around 50 were completely destroyed and 168 partially damaged, as per local education authorities. The number of students, once exceeding 200,000, has sharply declined as families fled and educational facilities collapsed.

The prolonged crisis deprived millions of children of formal education. Reports estimate that 2. 5 million children across Syria have dropped out of school, with another one million at risk of doing so. The resulting knowledge gap has driven up illiteracy and unemployment rates, particularly among youth who came of age during the war. Abu Ahmad, a father of three from Deir ez-Zor, informed North Press that his eldest son, Ahmad, “was a top student and dreamed of becoming a doctor.

But when our school was bombed in 2013, everything concluded. Now he is 23 and unemployed because he doesn’t have a diploma. ” The father added, “Even simple jobs refuse to hire him because he cannot read or write. ” Ayham al-Sabbar, another young man from Deir ez-Zor, shared a similar story. “I was in eighth grade when the war commenced. The school became a shelter and later rubble. I tried working in simple trades, but wages were too low. When recruitment opened for armed forces service, they refused me for lacking a basic education certificate,” he stated.

Educational collapse has led to what experts describe as a growing relief crisis. Engineer and youth affairs specialist Mohammed al-Awad informed North Press, “We are facing not just an educational problem, but a social one that threatens Syria’s future. These young people carry deep psychological scars and a sense of exclusion. ” Al-Awad urged for combined programs linking basic education with vocational training to equip youth with employable skills. “If we fail to act quickly,” he warned, “we risk turning an entire generation into a breeding ground for extremism and crime. Reintegration is not optional — it’s a national necessity. ” As Syria begins to emerge from active conflict, efforts to rebuild the…