- Title: Syrian schools erase Assad, but Kurdish language debate looms
- Date: 7th September 2017
- Summary: HAZIMA, NORTH OF RAQQA, SYRIA (RECENT - AUGUST 21, 2017) (REUTERS) TEACHER SPEAKING TO CHILDREN IN CLASS, SITTING AT DESKS CHILDREN SITTING AT DESKS WRITING, WIRES HANGING FROM CEILING CHILDREN CLAPPING AND SMILING CHILDREN RAISING HANDS, YELLING OUT ANSWERS TO TEACHER'S QUESTIONS CHILDREN SITTING AT DESKS (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) ARABIC TEACHER AND MEMBER OF THE EDUCATION COMMITTEE IN THE HAZIMA LOCAL COUNCIL, KHALAF HAJJI MATER, SAYING: "The curriculum is the old one, but we have taken out any ideas that call for religious, political or racial extremism, we reject all these notions completely. There will be some changes [to the curriculum], there is a specialised council that will look over the subjects and, as I said, they will remove any religious, racial or political extremism. The school must not call for any slogans, extremist or otherwise." VARIOUS OF CHILDREN ATTENDING CLASS VARIOUS OF BULLET HOLES IN THE SCHOOL WALLS CHILD WRITING ON THE BLACKBOARD VARIOUS OF TEACHERS LOOKING THROUGH BOOKS (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) HISTORY TEACHER, HASAN ALI, SAYING: "The curriculum followed is the one provided by the Ministry of Education, with the removal of some terms that call for religious, political extremism. These paragraphs will be removed from the curriculum." VARIOUS OF CHILDREN LISTENING DURING CLASS TEACHER INSTRUCTING THE CLASS NEXT TO BLACKBOARD CHILDREN SITTING AT DESKS VARIOUS OF TEACHER SIGNING UP CHILDREN FOR THE SCHOOL YEAR WOMAN WEARING A NIQAB TEACHER'S HAND HOLDING DOCUMENTS WOMAN AND CHILDREN LOOKING ON AS TEACHER REGISTERS CHILDREN (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) ARABIC TEACHER AND MEMBER OF THE EDUCATION COMMITTEE IN THE HAZIMA LOCAL COUNCIL, KHALAF HAJJI MATER, SAYING: "There are a lot of destroyed schools, and even those with an intact exterior were destroyed on the inside. No seats, no windows, no doors, no blackboard to instruct the students with. There is a building but the school furniture is no longer there, and this is the biggest challenge we face. We hope that this will be solved, everything else can be dealt with." RAQQA, SYRIA (RECENT - AUGUST 21, 2017) (REUTERS) EXTERIOR OF A DAMAGED SCHOOL IN RAQQA VARIOUS OF DAMAGED INTERIOR OF THE SCHOOL SIGN READING (Arabic) "THE ISLAMIC STATE IN IRAQ AND SHAM" DAMAGED SCHOOL BUILDING
- Embargoed: 21st September 2017 12:41
- Keywords: back to school erasing President Assad Syria Raqqa Hazima kurdish language change in curriculum
- Location: HAZIMA AND RAQQA, SYRIA
- City: HAZIMA AND RAQQA, SYRIA
- Country: Syria
- Topics: Education,Society/Social Issues
- Reuters ID: LVA0016XLLBUV
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: The few bullet-marked schools that didn't get destroyed booby-trapped by Islamic State around its former Syrian stronghold of Raqqa are buzzing for the first time in years with the sound of children learning.
In the village of Hazima, north of Raqqa, teachers gave ad-hoc alphabet lessons to crammed classrooms on a recent summer's day before the start of term.
The ultra-hardline Islamic State closed this and many other schools in northern Syria after it seized control of the region in 2014, three years into the country's civil war. Instead it taught children extremist thought in mosques.
But now that the group is ousted from most territory it held in and around Raqqa by a U.S.-backed military alliance, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a looming debate over education hints at the ethnic tensions expected to follow.
What is taught in areas under the control of the SDF, which includes Arab militias but is dominated by the Kurdish YPG, is one of many questions over how predominantly Arab parts of northern Syria will be run as they come into the Kurdish fold. Schools around Raqqa will this year teach a new curriculum that is based on old textbooks but erases the Baathist ideology of President Bashar al-Assad, a decision agreed on by Arab and Kurdish teachers alike.
The YPG has since early in the six-year-old war held areas of northeast Syria now under a self-run administration opposed by Assad and YPG foe Turkey. Resource-rich Raqqa, coveted by Syria's warring sides, is likely to join it, officials say. SDF advances against Islamic State have increasingly seized areas which, like Raqqa, are majority Arab. All races are represented in the local bodies that run regions it has captured, but critics say Kurds dominate decision-making.
Reuters interviews with SDF officials and local authorities last month hinted that resentment over Kurdish power is already brewing in education. A senior SDF adviser and coordinator with the U.S. coalition said he believed Kurdish would be taught to Kurdish pupils around Raqqa this year, following the model for other schools in SDF territory. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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