Over 800,000 Syrian children to be integrated into Turkish education system

Children who have fled war-torn Syria will be integrated into Turkey's official education system and the government is focusing on Turkish language learning for Syrian students. 

Around 133,400 Syrian students are currently enrolled in public schools run by the Education Ministry, but there are nearly 832,000 school age children between 6 and 18 years old in Turkey. 

"Nobody has ever done anything like this probably since the Second World War," Jane Lewis, the head of the European Commission Humanitarian Aid Office (ECHO) in Turkey, told the Hürriyet Daily News. 

"There are as many [Syrian] children in Turkey who need to go to school as there are refugees in Jordan," Lewis added.

Some 420,000 Syrian children out of 832,000 of school age are going to school of some kind in Turkey, Lewis noted.

All Syrian children have the right to attend Turkish schools or temporary education centers, but most of them only speak Arabic and the language barrier often stands in their way. 

"The [Turkish] government has put a huge amount of effort into either integrating children into the Turkish system through temporary education systems using the Syrian curriculum and the Arabic language. What they want to do now is to integrate all Syrian children into their government system, which will take a huge amount of effort by everybody," the ECHO official stated. 

"You have children who don't necessarily speak Turkish, but also you have quite a few kids who have not been in school for a long time … How do you get a child who is now 15 and who has been out of school since he was 10? They are looking at different ways to do it either through high school or through vocational training. What are the options to stop these children...