Qasd is intensifying its war on education

Hasakah | The scenario of students traveling long distances to get to their schools in areas under Syrian government control in Al-Hasakah governorate has returned, with double congestion this year, due to the Kurdish Autonomous Administration’s decision to close the last 118 secondary schools in the governorate, thus preventing the teaching of the government curriculum in all its stages in the regions. Your control. With the multiplicity of transportation, whether by public transportation, bicycles or on foot, Hasaka students proceed to receive public education, coming from the countryside near and far to the cities of Qamishli and Hasaka. Although students and administrative and educational cadres of closed schools went to demonstrations to protest the closing of their schools, the Autonomous Administration still adheres to the adoption of its own study plans, despite the low participation due to the absence of any international or local recognition of it. In fact, Asayish Kurdish forces forcibly dispersed a sit-in by students from the “Hanna Atallah Martyr School” to demand its reopening, and detained several students for several hours before releasing them.

In this regard, the Syrian Foreign Ministry considered in a statement that “the SDF militias associated with the US occupation continue their crimes against the population of the areas in which they are located, targeting the education sector, and affirming their approach to spreading ignorance and illiteracy through intimidation and deprivation of basic requirements, thus threatening the future of thousands of children and young people. ». The statement pointed out that “the violations by the terrorist militia Qasd have taken on a systematic character since 2013, when they began their interventions in the content of the school curriculum, and then escalated towards the forced takeover of schools and their transformation into military barracks and prisons, threatening to students and families and intimidating the teaching and administrative staff, benefiting from the support provided by them. Its American occupation forces. ‘ The ministry added that the “SDF” worked to “gradually stop education in schools and impose educational curricula without regard to their quality and content.”
In practice, Syrian government agencies seek to increase pressure on Kurdish leaders to reopen public schools and neutralize education from political and military conflicts. In this sense, the governor of Hasaka, Ghassan Halim Khalil, held a meeting with representatives of the United Nations and the organization “UNICEF”, in which he called for “an international intervention to neutralize the education of any conflict”, highlighting that “the process education continues in the governorate, despite all the practices of the Qasd gangs. ” Aimed at ignoring the generation, in service of the American occupation agenda. Khalil noted that “the Syrian government has worked and is working to absorb all the students of the Hasakah governorate throughout its geography, to ensure that they obtain their right to government education.

Since 2013, the Kurdish “self-administration” has adopted its own curriculum

In parallel with the move towards international platforms, the Al-Hasakah governorate, in coordination with the Ministry of Education, is taking a series of measures aimed at providing additional places for students in public schools in areas under government control in the governorate. In this context, the Director of Legal Affairs of the Ministry of Education, Median Bordani, said in a statement to Al-Akhbar that “a ministerial delegation has been in Hasaka since the first days of the opening of the schools, to take immediate measures and find solutions to urgent problems that hinder the educational process in the governorate “. Bordani added that “exceptional decisions were made to seek new places, open more schools and expand some of them, with the aim of housing all the students of the government,” noting that “it was agreed to increase the number of students in private schools. , and allow any building to be inverted as a school, to fill the shortage of numbers. Schools taken over by Qasd militants. Bordani accuses the “SDF” of “closing schools to spread ignorance and force children and adolescents to volunteer in their ranks”, and calls on “the United Nations, UNICEF and UNESCO to assume their responsibilities to stop the crime committed by depriving to the students of their education. “
In turn, the director of Education in Hasaka, Ilham Sorkhan, said in an interview with “Al-Akhbar”, that “more than 125 thousand students have been incorporated into public schools in areas under the control of the Syrian government, and that is only within 179 school buildings. ” 2106 public schools, most of which were converted for non-educational uses and some were military. Sourkhan warns that “the closure of schools by Qasd and the overcrowding of classrooms in limited schools raises fears about the coronavirus outbreak” and holds the SDF responsible for this disaster.
Since 2013, the Kurdish “Self-Administration” adopted its own curriculum, and tried to impose it on students and families gradually, leading to the prevention of public education in all its stages this year, in its areas of control. As a result, the number of schools teaching the government curriculum has decreased, from 407 schools last year to 179 schools this year.

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