Impact of War on Syrian Children's Learning

The IRC started its education and child protection programs in Northern Syria in 2013 in informal settlements. Today, the IRC supports more than 3,500 students through five off-camp schools. Through these schools, the IRC implements its Healing Classrooms approach, which provides psychosocial, social, and educational activities to boys and girls, training to teachers, and parenting skills training to parents, through structured and age-appropriate activities that prioritize children's safety, security, learning, and psychosocial well-being. The results from assessment underline sizeable challenges related to learning in assessed schools and point to the need for continued research and support for quality education to ensure children are in school, safe, and learning. Due to significant gaps in data and information on learning inside Syria, IRC undertook the ASER assessment in order to understand reading and math levels among supported students in grades 1-8. ASER was chosen as the measure because the tools are user-friendly and allow for a quick snapshot of early grade reading and math abilities.

The ASER assessment was conducted in 5 IRC-supported schools in Idleb, targeting students in grades 1 to 8. In each school, IRC education team members trained teachers, who subsequently conducted the assessment using paper forms over a two-day period in November 2016. After forms were collected, data were entered electronically by the IRC team. Although security challenges and children's obligations at home made it impossible to reach all students, the final number assessed (2,846) represents approximately 73% of the children enrolled in grades 1-8 at the time.

Findings:

• 59% of 6th graders, 52% of 7th graders, and 35% of 8th graders could not read a simple, 7-10 sentence story—the equivalent of 2nd grade reading skills.
• 64% of 6th graders, 63% of 7th graders, and 46% of 8th graders could not solve a subtraction problem—the equivalent of 2nd- grade math skills.
• Girls frequently outperformed boys, and the differences are most striking in higher grades. A much larger percentage of 7th and 8th grade girls could read at a grade 2 level than 7th and 8th grade boys (59% of girls in grade 7, compared to 23% of boys and 72% of girls in grade 8, compared to 38% of boys). Boys' scores are dramatically lower in grade 7 (19% able to subtract, compared to 45% of girls) and grade 8 (35% able to subtract, compared to 60% of girls).