Alaa still remembers the day she was forced to flee Syria. “When I visualize the old days of violence in Kafr Battna, Damascus, I cannot believe I am still alive,” she says. “The walls of our house were tumbling down as we fled. It is like a nightmare.”
Like many other young Palestine refugees who ran from Syria to Lebanon, Alaa has had her education severely disrupted as a result of her prolonged displacement. She has missed two years of school and finds herself caught between the Syrian and Lebanese education systems. “I should be in the eleventh grade this year, but instead I have been forced to put on hold my dream of an education. I sat for the ninth-grade exam at an UNRWA school in Sidon (Lebanon). I passed, but it is not recognized by the Syrian Ministry of Education,” she says.
Due to the conflict, over 45,000 Palestine refugees have left Syria for Lebanon. They face uncertain legal status, discrimination and impoverishment. Palestine refugee children are frequently unable to access education services, in part due to financial circumstances, the remote location of some refugee settlements, and language difficulties. The Lebanese curriculum is predominantly taught in English or French and does not prepare students for Syrian curriculum exams.
To help students like Alaa maintain their education, UNRWA, with the support of the Palestine and Syrian embassies in Beirut, helped 143 young Palestine refugees return to Damascus to complete their ninth-grade exams in May 2015. These exams are an essential milestone for students who wish to continue on to secondary school and higher education in Syria. As part of the same effort, UNRWA and the General Administration for Palestine Arab Refugees (GAPAR) reached an agreement for ninth-grade students to leave the besieged area of Yarmouk in order to prepare and sit for the exams.
In total, 295 students boarded at the UNRWA Palestine Institute School, where they took part in catch-up classes provided by UNRWA teachers, as well as three hot meals per day, hygiene kits and transport to and from the exam centre. They were also given psychosocial support from trained UNRWA counsellors to help them cope with trauma and anxiety caused by displacement and ongoing conflict.
For 15-year-old Maher, sitting the exams is an important step towards his dream of becoming a news anchor. Maher fled Dera'a with his family three years ago and took refuge in al-Kharoub in Lebanon. Determined to complete his education, he has been working during the summer to earn enough money to buy books and school stationery and has completed his studies alone. "I studied my ninth-grade lessons without going to any school in Lebanon," he said.
Alaa too remains determined to work towards a brighter future. For now, she has completed a business course and works as a secretary to support her family. "I hope to continue my study to become a lawyer, but we face an uncertain future," she says.