The autonomous Kurdish administration halted the construction works in three schools sponsored by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) in northeastern Syria over demands to implement the Kurdish curriculum in these schools, local reporter said.
UNICEF refused a demand by the powerful PYD militia that leads the autonomous administration to teach the Kurdish curriculum in al-Mabrouka camp in Qamishli where most of the students are Arabs.
On Tuesday, teachers and staff in ten schools protested against PYD for imposing a Kurdish curriculum in the schools of Ghurayan neighborhood south of Hasaka city.
According to pro-regime media sources, “principles, administrative and teaching staff of 10 primary and elementary schools and a number of students’ parents carried out a sit-in in front of the mosque in Ghurayan neighborhood in al-Hasaka.
They came out to protest the Kurdish Asayish militia closing the schools in the neighborhood and imposing the Kurdish Autonomous Administration’s curriculum in the schools.” The reports highlighted the action in relation to the approaching start of the school year in September.
The Kurdish curriculum has been developed by the autonomous administration, which runs its own government institutions, security forces and now schools in parts of northern and northeast Syria.
More than 86,000 students are being taught by about 3,830 instructors in schools run by the autonomous administration, according to AFP.
The protestors raised banners against the Kurdish curriculum, demanded the Arabic language curriculum be taught in the schools and the departure of the Kurdish party militants from the Ghurayan neighborhood.
Local sources said that officials loyal to al-Assad send their children to private Syriac schools affiliated to the church in the Nazareth neighborhood. Those schools follow the regime’s Ministry of Education’s curriculum, while children from low-income families and the rural population are forced to attend schools teaching the Autonomous Administration imposed curricula.
The sources explained that the Democratic Union Party administration asked tribal figures and the Arab Tribal Council to negotiate with the teaching staff in the ten schools in Ghurayan to avoid a direct clash between its members and the protesters. The neighborhood is known for previously being a resistance faction stronghold and it was the last place in the Syrian Jazira region to raise the revolution flag in September 2014.
In related news, hundreds of students from Qamishli city held a sit-in early this month in front of the United Nations building in the city to protest the Democratic Union Party’s decision to prevent private lessons and close down private educational institutions. The closures and restrictions come ahead of the Autonomous Administrative’s plan to introduce its curricula in the secondary school with the start of the next school year.
The regime and the Democratic Union Part are both struggling to impose their ideologically saturated curricula on Syrian children and youths in the Syrian Jazira. The Democratic Union Party has tried to impose its Kurdish curriculum on schools in areas under its control while the regime continues to teach the Ministry of Education’s curriculum in the cities of Hasaka, al-Qamishli and some surrounding villages.
