Syrian girls’ right to schooling unrestricted, new education minister says

DAMASCUS — Syria will remove all references to the former ruling Baath party from its educational system as of next week but will not otherwise change school curricula or restrict the rights of girls to learn, the country’s new education minister said.

“Education is a red line for the Syrian people, more important than food and water,” Nazir Mohammad al-Qadri said in an interview from his office in Damascus.

“The right to education is not limited to one specific gender. … There may be more girls in our schools than boys,” he said.

The secular, pan-Arab nationalist Baath Party governed Syria since a 1963 coup d’etat, seeing education as an important tool for instilling life-long loyalty among the young to the country’s authoritarian ruling system.

President Bashar al-Assad was toppled on Dec. 8 by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), an Islamist rebel group that some Syrians fear may seek to implement a conservative form of Islamist governance.

But Qadri’s plans reflect their wider management approach and moderate messaging so far.

Syria has long been seen to have one of the Arab world’s strongest education systems, a reputation that has largely survived 13 years of civil war.

Qadri said religion — both Muslim and Christian — will continue to be taught as a subject in school.

Primary schools will remain mixed between boys and girls, while secondary education will stay largely segregated, he said.

“After primary school, there were always schools for females and schools for males. We won’t change that,” said Qadri, who had taken to his ornately-furnished office so recently that he had not yet procured Syria’s new green, white and black flag.