3RP partners supporting education ministries' initiatives for access to quality education
During the month, education partners continued to work with the education ministries in refugee hosting countries on initiatives to ensure that vulnerable children from the refugee and host communities are able to access education.
In Turkey, the Ministry of National Education (MoNE) conducted a Grade 12 validation examination for Syrian students who had completed Grade 12 through Temporary Education Centres. This is a positive development in comparison to 2014 when refugee students had to travel back to Syria to take their high school graduation examinations – at a great risk to their personal safety. The validation examination will provide students with a school-leaving certificate endorsed by the MoNE and the results will be used when applying for admission to Turkish universities and for scholarships.
The Ministry of Education and Higher Education in Lebanon continued to roll out the Accelerated Learning Programme (ALP) pilot and until the month of June over 12,800 children took the placement test. The programme will allow children aged between nine and 17 years who have been out of school for more than two years to catch up with the Lebanese educational system.
In Iraq, the Ministry of Education (MoE) approved the proposal to permit Syrian students in lower elementary classes to register in Kurdish medium schools in three governorates in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI), which will ease the demand and over crowdedness at Arabic medium schools. An education partner will implement a number of quick impact projects per governorate to reinforce local school capacity.
In June, the MoE in Jordan, in partnership with the Education Sector Working Group (ESWG), finalized the International Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE) minimum standards for the education response in the country. INEE is a tool that education actors in emergencies use to ensure that they meet the minimum level of educational quality. The document is planned to be launched in July, followed by further capacity building with partners within the sector on the contextualised INEE minimum standards.