Turkey educating nearly 500,000 Syrian children: Minister

ANKARA – Anadolu Agency

Turkey’s Education Ministry integrated nearly half a million Syrian children into the education system in the 2016-2017 academic year, according to official data.

Turkey hosts 3.2 million Syrian refugees, more than any other country in the world.

According to information gathered from ministry data, 492,544 school-aged Syrian children out of just over 833,000 were integrated into the Turkish system in the 2016-2017 academic year.

This accounts for almost 60 percent of school-aged Syrian refugees sheltering in Turkey.

Among the nearly half a million Syrian children in the Turkish system are: 25,761 kindergarteners; 106,257 secondary-school pupils and 51,889 high-school students.

Over 308,637 primary-school aged Syrian students living in Turkey were integrated into the Turkish education system in the 2016-2017 academic year.

The ministry aims to increase education access to Syrian students to 65 percent in the 2017-2018 academic year.

Ankara has spent $25 billion in helping and sheltering refugees since the beginning of the Syrian civil war.

Meanwhile, EU delegation head to Turkey, Christian Berger praised the country’s efforts in providing education to Syrian refugees on Nov. 16.

Christian Berger said Turkey’s Education Ministry and Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) have shown immense commitment to the provision of education to more than 500,000 children from Syria.

He made the remarks during a ground-breaking ceremony of 60 schools across Turkey, in the southern province of Osmaniye.