Moayyad Al-Ashkar – Hama
translated by : Jihad Al-Hajj

Children have once again become victims of educational violence by teachers in public schools in the southern countryside of Hama, After many years of displacement, return, shelling and destruction of homes, residents of these areas have found themselves at risk of dropping out of school that is haunting their children

Um Hasna, a mother of four children from the village of Harbnafseh in rural Hama, says her children are unable to go to school because the principal asks them to dress fully, arguing that laws force them to do so

She adds that these decisions prevented her children from going to school on a daily basis, while they were out of school because of the war for three years or more and there is only this school where they can complete their education

According to Um Hasna, children are afraid to go to school because of the abuse of the principal and teachers despite their desperate need to learn, leaving them in the school yard and preventing them from entering classes

Not only has neglect in Harbnafseh schools abused children and prevented them from exercising their right to education, but students whose parents can dress them up and go to school collide with teachers who are indifferent to students or to teaching

Radwan, a 9 year old –  fourth grader at the village school, says that the teacher enters the classroom and screams at the students and silences them under the threat of a stick, and then sits in the chair and starts playing with her mobile phone without teaching the children anything

According to the students’ parents, their children learn nothing at school and the majority of them cannot read, write or count despite being in advanced classes

Many NGOs and organizations have campaigned to return to learning and Similar campaigns also for self-learning for dropouts or those who could not learn during the previous period, where many educational centers were opened in Harbnafseh, the first objective of which is to return children to learning

Ms. Sawsan, an official at the NGO Learning Center, says the center’s goal is to help students who drop-out of school to get them back on track

Sawsan said that at the center, they suffer from the complete neglect of public schools in teaching children, as the children enrolled in the center cannot read or write despite their older ages, which is a major obstacle in helping

We asked the parents if they had filed a complaint with the Directorate of Education in Hama about the ill-treatment of their children in schools, but they did not pay any attention to them

According to Abu Ahmed, the father of one of the students, the teachers at the school do not care about the education or the principal, and all of them are supported by security agencies inthe area and no one can talk to them or give them alert