At the beginning of the current academic year, a comprehensive Kurdish language curriculum was rolled out in primary schools in several cities in Syria’s northeast.
The autonomous ministry of education of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) brought in the system for years one, two and three.
Teaching in Kurdish was once banned in Syrian schools. When the PYD first introduced some Kurdish language classes into the region’s state system two years ago, the government responded by closing down dozens of primary schools in the cities of Hassakah and Qamishli.
It also threatened to sack teachers caught teaching Kurdish. Hundreds of children missed out on their education as a result.
Most Kurdish people in Syria’s northeast want their children to be taught in their mother tongue. They believe this is a basic right in line with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
However, some objected to the new primary schools curricula as it failed to consider students who did not speak Kurdish. Opponents said that the autonomous ministry of education had poorly implemented the new system and some parents stopped sending their children to school.
Since then, there have been calls to adopt two separate primary school curricula, one in Kurdish and one in Arabic. This is currently being implemented in the town of Ifrin in the Aleppo countryside.
Activists and civil society institutions have also launched awareness campaigns to encourage parents to send their children back to school.
Damascus Bureau’s Bukhityar Hassan visited one of these campaigns and took the following photographs.
