Syrian Schoolgirl Dropouts Rise

That was when her family moved from a drought-hit rural village in the north-eastern province of Hasakeh to the slum in the outskirts of Damascus where they live now.

“School is too far and expensive to get to and I want to help my family,” said Laylas, who, nevertheless, looked downhearted.

Laylas is one of thousands of teenage girls who are forced to drop out of school before they complete mandatory, free schooling years.

In Syria, children must legally attend school until the age of 15 but law enforcement in this area remains lax.

The phenomenon of school dropouts, especially affecting girls, has increased recently in poor neighbourhoods of big cities and in rural areas, experts and officials say.

Haitham Yahya, a Damascus local government official, said in media reports recently that a large number of girls were dropping out of school in some deprived parts of Damascus and the surrounding area.

Yahya said that many parents were discouraged from sending their children to class when the schools were far from their homes. He also said that there were simply not enough schools in some areas of the city.

The latest national report on population and education in Syria for 2008 showed the number of dropouts increasing and affecting girls more than boys. The proportion of children below 15 who do not attend school was around 22 per cent.

“The phenomenon of girls dropping out of school is alarming,” Sabah al-Hallak, a social worker and primary school teacher, said.

Hallak said one reason was that many poor families were marrying off their daughters at an early age to men from the Gulf.

Syria attracts a rising number of tourists from the region and is depicted as having an idyllic, traditional Arab lifestyle and culture in television dramas seen across the Arab world.

That and a fascination in the Gulf with the Levantine culture leads a number of largely wealthy Gulf men to seek out young Syrian brides. Marrying a girl under 18 is often seen as desirable by Arab men, who think she will be more obedient.

A report by the Syrian Women Observatory, an independent advocacy group, which will be presented to the United Nations children’s committee in 2011, explains the economic, social and legal reasons behind the phenomenon.

It says that parents, especially in underprivileged urban and rural areas, take their girls out of school after they finish elementary level to work in agriculture, house cleaning, and factories.

The report also says that although education is free, families still incur the costs of transport to and from school every day. This is prohibitive especially in rural areas where schools may be far away, it adds.

Some believe that the spread of Islamism has caused many parents to prefer marrying their girls off at an early age over sending them to school.

“There are cases of girls dropping out of school in very conservative areas,” said Mais al-Kraidi, a columnist who writes about women’s and children’s issues.

Some schools have resorted to segregating boys and girls in the same class or focusing more on religious teaching to try to persuade conservative parents to continue educating their girls, she said.

According to the Women Observatory report, some parents say that they do not like to send their daughters to elementary and intermediate schools because toilets are mixed and not hygienic enough.

Some critics say that current laws are not strict enough to discourage parents from taking their children out of school.

Parents who breach the compulsory education laws get a warning letter and after that can be fined ten US dollars. After that the penalty rises to 20 dollars and a month in prison. Anyone employing a school age child can get two months in jail and a fine of 20 dollars.

Sawsan Raslan, an expert on children’s rights, said of the law, "Even this lax punishment is not enforced because school principals often do not inform the authorities about cases of dropouts. Even when they do, the ministry of education doesn't follow up on the matter seriously."

Hallak, the activist, said the government should increase the education budget to support parents and encourage them to keep educating their children.

“The government could offer food parcels to children in poor areas or carry part of the financial responsibility for children at the different stages of schooling,” she said.

Over the past year, the government has adopted policies to try to eliminate the phenomenon of school dropouts against a backdrop of inflation and growing unemployment.

They have offered poor families wheat and other in-kind assistance as long as they continue to send their children to school.

Meanwhile, Laylas hopes that her family’s situation will eventually improve so that she can resume school.

“I feel sad when I see other kids going to school while I am stuck at the tailoring table all day long,” she said.