An innovative approach to schooling in the impoverished north-east of Syria has seen enrolment figures increase for the current school year.

“I like this school very much. The teachers never shout at me if I make a mistake. And if I have any problem I can go and talk directly to the headmistress,” said fourth-grader Hind Hamad, 9.

She is one of 900 students at the Hawary Bumidian School in Raqqa, the capital city of Raqqa Governorate, which has benefited from a scheme by the Ministry of Education in conjunction with the United Nations children’s agency, UNICEF, to improve teaching methods and the general school environment.

“The aim of the Child-Friendly Schools project is to train teachers to better manage their large classes so that every child gets some attention and, in the long run, to reduce overcrowded classrooms,” Bashar Masri, an assistant project officer at UNICEF, said.

The results have been dramatic with more new pupils signing up. From 700 students in 2005, the Hawary Bumidian School enrolled some 900 for the current school year.

“I heard from my friends at other schools that their teachers shout and sometimes even hit them,” said Hind. “In my school, teachers explain everything very clearly and even let us start our homework in class so they can help us understand it.”

Enrolment rates for secondary schools in Raqqa are below Syria’s national average of 43 percent, according to the UN Development Programme’s (UNDP) 2005 Human Development Report. More than 2,500 pupils dropped out of the 1,200 schools in the governorate during the 2004-2005 school year, according to statistics from the Ministry of Education. The majority were girls.

Girls drop out early in rural areas for cultural reasons as parents from conservative Muslims families want them to stay at home.

Outdated teaching methods

In addition, Masri said part of the reason for the low enrolment and high drop out rates was large class sizes, which average more than 50 pupils, and outdated teaching methods. Both of these issues make it more likely for pupils to leave school before finishing their basic education.

To tackle these problems, UNICEF last month launched a five-year project aimed at creating ‘Child-Friendly Schools’ (CFS) in 15 pilot schools across five of Syria’s north-eastern governorates.

This region is one of Syria’s poorest, with 62 percent of the population living in poverty, according to a report last July by UNDP. It also has the country’s highest illiteracy rate, at 38.6 percent, according to a national census conducted in 2004 by the Central Bureau of Statistics.

CFS schools aim to have no more than 30 students per class, dividing them into working groups rather than the customary rows of desks that focus solely on the teacher.

These schools also teach life skills - such as public speaking, problem solving and communication skills – which are currently lacking in school curricula in Syria, said Masri.

Such life skills are crucial to young people’s prospects of finding employment in Syria’s increasingly competitive job market.

“From the economic perspective, we aim to persuade parents that learning has a higher value than working for a few hours a day,” said Masri. “A child with an education or a degree can bring much more to a family in the long run than the little money they can earn now by dropping out of school.”

In Hawary Bumidian School - which began implementing the CFS scheme in September last year, ahead of its official launch - teachers now hold a monthly meeting to discuss school affairs, while parents are invited twice a year to discuss possible improvements.

And children get a say too. ‘Wish boxes’, where children can post their ideas for improving the school, have been put up outside classrooms and the messages are read by teachers.

“We are working hard to make these wishes come true,” Hind Tareef, headmistress of Hawary Bumidian, said. “We would like to implement the group teaching method of CFS, but we still have class sizes of around 40 pupils each, making it difficult to do so.”

After evaluation of the pilot project, UNICEF aims to expand CFS to other schools across Syria.