(MENAFN- Jordan Times) AMMAN — The Ministry of Labour and UNICEF Jordan announced on Monday that donor countries would continue their support in the amount of JD51 million for the 2018/2019 school year.
'For the third year in a row, donor nations extended support to The Ministry of Education so that it can continue to work towards fulfilling its commitment towards providing quality education for all children,' Minister of Education Azmi Mahafzah said in the statement, adding that 'at a time where the educational system is facing increasing pressures and challenges, this support is seen as invaluable to help the ministry deliver on its promises'.
The donations are part of a commitment made by countries to support Syria and the region made at the Syria conference in February 2016. These commitments include supporting the Ministry of Education in the implementation of the 'Accelerating Access to Quality Formal Education for Syrian Refugee Children' plan, according to the statement.
The announcement by the ministry comes on the heels of a report by CARE International documenting dwindling resources available to refugees, as well as a school attendance rate of 53.9 per cent for Syrian children below the age of 18.
In comparison, the report said 85 per cent of Jordanian and 80 per cent of Iraqi children below the age of 18 attend school. And 91 per cent of Syrian children look for work on a daily basis, compounding the problem of keeping them in school.
According to the statement released by the ministry, ministers and donors agreed to focus this year on children still not reached by the education sector. The Ministry of Education said that it will continue to focus on equity of education, better equipping schools and providing electricity to all camp schools, while increasing the number of libraries, computer labs and science labs at camp schools.
In recent remarks to The Jordan Times, UNICEF Jordan Representative Robert Jenkins said that a total of 130,000Syrianrefugee children in Jordan were enrolled in schools across refugee camps and host communities in 2017, adding that thenumberofSyrianchildren enrolled in the UN agency's catch-up and dropout programmes in 2017 reached 5,600, while thenumberofSyrianchildren enrolled in KG2 surpassed 3,000.
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