When a shell fell on the gym hall located behind the elementary school in the town of Harasta in the Damascus countryside, Ahmad (12 years old) was playing football with his friends, without knowing that this terrible echo would change their day.
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He returned home trembling, hearing his mother stifle her tears, seeing the smoke rising from the school that had tied him to hope, to the anthem, and to the school newspaper that had been published two days earlier. The school had become rubble, the classrooms abandoned, and the desks that had been surrounded by his dreams were completely removed.
Omar’s story is not unique; it is a mirror of the massive destruction that struck the educational infrastructure in Syria, leaving millions of students outside schools, placing an unbearable burden on families, and leaving deep psychological scars.
Numbers not easily told
According to data from the Syrian Education Ministry, there are about 19,400 schools in the country, of which about 7,900 are totally or partially destroyed.
About 40% of schools are currently out of service as a result of the damage or their complete destruction.
In Deir ez-Zor province alone, 63 schools are completely destroyed, and 23 schools were used as military headquarters by the Iranian regime and loyal militias, bringing the number of schools out of service to 86.
More than 2.4 million children have dropped out of school over the past years due to displacement, destruction, poverty, and lack of educational infrastructure.
On history of bombing and destruction
Among the known incidents, the bombing of the “Akrama Al-Makhzoumi” school in Homs in 2014, where a suicide bomber carried out a double explosion near the school gate, resulting in 54 dead, including 47 children.
Schools in the city of Ariha in Idlib province were bombed on November 4, 2020, where the schoolyard and its facilities were partially destroyed.
Professor Marwan Abdul Karim – a history teacher in Idlib countryside – told The Media Line:
“I was explaining to the students how history is written, but for years, history was being distorted to serve an ideology. Now, after the destruction of many schools, and after we have seen how shells do not distinguish between a student or a political symbol, I see that my mission has doubled: to teach the facts, and ignite the curiosity of questions, not to dictate ready-made answers.”
Abu Mazen from Deir ez-Zor, father of three children, narrated to The Media Line:
“One notebook for each child, a new uniform for every school start—these simple things have become a distant dream. The school that my middle son attended was destroyed in the bombing three years ago, and we had to reuse what remained of the school uniform for our youngest daughter. But despite fear and deprivation, education is the land I do not want to be taken from us.”
Um Samer – a former teacher displaced with her family – said in an interview with The Media Line:
“I fear for my children when they hear the sound of planes or when a shell falls on their school. The change in the curriculum delights my heart, that Assad’s pictures are no longer printed in the books, that my son enters the classroom and history is a subject, not an icon. But I fear that the school may be a safe place only on paper, while reality says not every school has been rebuilt, nor is every neighborhood safe yet.”
Schoolbooks, classrooms, and school façades used to carry pictures of Bashar al-Assad, and he used to be greeted every morning compulsorily by all students and teachers, but today, there are no Assad pictures after the curriculum change.
As for Leila (11 years old), a student from a camp near Homs, she said to The Media Line:
“I love to learn, to write, to read, and to know why history became different. They told me that the school will no longer have Assad’s pictures and that we will read the truth. I am afraid of the exam, because in the past years I lost some letters, but my heart is happy because I will go to school without fear of silence or of being told: this is what we only learned.”
Challenges still remaining
The inability to rebuild all destroyed schools quickly; the number of schools still out of service is huge, and funding mechanisms are slow.
The shortage of qualified teachers is especially severe in areas that witnessed displacement or severe destruction.
The psychological impact on students who lived through bombing, displacement, and loss affects their ability to concentrate and achieve.
The high costs of rehabilitating infrastructure, from window glass to furniture, desks, and even sanitation facilities.
Mahmoud, an English teacher from the city of Kafranbel in Idlib countryside, taught children English for free for many years, defying bombing and destruction, and during those years, he taught hundreds of students in his city. Today, he recounts his feelings after returning to official school teaching.
Mahmoud said in an interview with The Media Line:
“I have been appointed as an English teacher in a school near my house. True, the school is destroyed, but education is the most important thing students must receive. They are in our care.”
Stationery as burden draining pockets
Alongside the school uniforms and high book prices, stationery comes as an additional concern, burdening Syrian families at the beginning of the school year. A regular notebook now costs the equivalent of a full day’s work for the father, while a school bag has exceeded half the salary of a government employee. Many families resorted to reusing last year’s notebooks after tearing out the used pages, while some siblings shared pens and pencil cases in an attempt to ease the burdens.
Abu Salim, father of two little girls in primary grades, said in an interview with The Media Line:
“We used to go to the market and buy notebooks and colors for our children happily, but today we stand in front of the seller and count by the piece. My daughter asked for a box of crayons, but its price was half of what I owned. I had to buy her only three colored pencils.”
The stories of Ahmad, Leila, Abu Mazen, and Um Samer draw the features of Syria today: a land whose schools are destroyed, whose students’ dreams are killed, and whose mothers’ hearts are opened to fear. But despite the destruction, there is light: the light of the desire to know the truth, the light of hope that education will be a bridge, not a battlefield. In a school year that begins amid the rubble of schools, the intention is for it to be a beginning of building, not a continuation of ruin.