Source: Reuters
“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.” (12/19/24)