Syrian girls鈥� right to schooling unrestricted, new education minister says

This picture shows a blackboard in a destroyed school at the Yarmuk camp for Palestinian refugees in the south of Damascus on December 19, 2024. (AFP)
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  • New rulers promise equal treatment for all minority groups
  • Education minister assures girls鈥� right to education remains unchanged
  • Half of Syria鈥檚 schools destroyed or damaged, Qadri says

DAMASCUS: Syria will remove all references to the former ruling Baath party from its educational system as of next week but will not otherwise change school curricula or restrict the rights of girls to learn, the country鈥檚 new education minister said.
鈥淓ducation is a red line for the Syrian people, more important than food and water,鈥� Nazir Mohammad Al-Qadri said in an interview from his office in Damascus.
鈥淭he right to education is not limited to one specific gender. ... There may be more girls in our schools than boys,鈥� he said.
The secular, pan-Arab nationalist Baath Party governed Syria since a 1963 coup d鈥檈tat, seeing education as an important tool for instilling life-long loyalty among the young to the country鈥檚 authoritarian ruling system.
President Bashar Assad was toppled on Dec. 8 by Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), an Islamist rebel group that some Syrians fear may seek to implement a conservative form of Islamist governance.
But Qadri鈥檚 plans reflect their wider management approach and moderate messaging so far.
Syria has long been seen to have one of the Arab world鈥檚 strongest education systems, a reputation that has largely survived 13 years of civil war.
Qadri said religion 鈥� both Muslim and Christian 鈥� will continue to be taught as a subject in school.
Primary schools will remain mixed between boys and girls, while secondary education will stay largely segregated, he said.
鈥淎fter primary school, there were always schools for females and schools for males. We won鈥檛 change that,鈥� said Qadri, who had taken to his ornately-furnished office so recently that he had not yet procured Syria鈥檚 new green, white and black flag.
Syria鈥檚 new rulers, who have long-since disavowed their former Al-Qaeda links, have said that all of Syria鈥檚 minority groups including Kurds, Christians, Druze and Alawites will be treated equal as the new government focuses on rebuilding.
They face a formidable challenge.
Syria remains under tight Western sanctions.
Entire cities were levelled in 13 years of war that Qadri said had also left about half the country鈥檚 18,000 schools damaged or destroyed.
But the rebels have moved into government fast, extending a hand to former state employees who have shown up to work in droves.
Most of the new ministers are young 鈥� in their 30s or 40s 鈥� making 54-year-old Qadri among the oldest in government.
Born and raised in Damascus, he was imprisoned by the Assad regime in 2008 on what he said were spurious charges of inciting sectarian strife, preventing him from finishing his bachelor鈥檚 degree.
He was released a decade later and fled to northern Idlib, then under the control of HTS, becoming education minister in its Salvation Government in 2022.
He is currently finishing his masters thesis in Arabic language.
With the political and social contours of the new Syrian state still being drawn, Qadri said students would not be tested on their mandatory 鈥渘ationalist studies鈥� 鈥� previously a vehicle for teaching Baathism and Assad family history 鈥� this year.