In the battered southern Idlib countryside of Syria, the echoes of war have finally begun to fade, replaced by the cautious optimism of families returning home after years of exile. Yet as residents trickle back to villages once caught in the crossfire, they are met with a daunting reality: hundreds of schools, crucial to the community’s revival, remain in ruins nearly a year after former President Bashar Assad was ousted in a rebel offensive.
According to AP, the devastation is everywhere. School buildings stand gutted, their windows shattered and walls pocked with bullet holes. Inside, sunlight pours through empty frames, illuminating classrooms stripped of desks, doors, and even the steel beams that once held the structures together. Children huddle on thin blankets on cold floors, their backs pressed to crumbling walls, determined to learn despite the odds stacked against them. Some, like a young girl in Maar Sharamin, balance their notebooks on their knees, tracing out the Arabic alphabet as best they can.
For families like that of Safiya al-Jurok, the journey home has been bittersweet. Forced to flee Maar Sharamin five years ago as Assad’s forces recaptured the area, they returned after his fall last December, only to find their house destroyed. Now, they live in the same tent that sheltered them during their displacement, pitched beside the ruins of their former home. Al-Jurok’s three children—now in third, fourth, and fifth grades—attend the local elementary school, which reopened just last month. But the conditions are dire.
“If it rains, it’ll rain on my children,” al-Jurok told AP, her voice heavy with worry. “The school doesn’t even have running water.”
Abdullah Hallak, the principal of Maar Shamarin Elementary, paints a stark picture of the challenges ahead. “Our kids are coming here where there are no seats, no boards and no windows and as you know, winter is coming,” he said to AP. “Some parents call us to complain that their kids are getting sick sitting on the floor, so they have them skip school.”
The scale of destruction is staggering. Deputy Education Minister Youssef Annan told AP that 40% of schools across Syria remain destroyed, with the hardest-hit areas in rural Idlib and Hama, where fighting was fiercest during the nearly 14-year civil war. In Idlib alone, 350 schools are out of service, and only about 10% have been rehabilitated so far. “Many schools were stripped bare, with iron stolen from roofs and structures, requiring years and significant funds to rebuild,” Annan explained. The new school year, which officially began in mid-September, launched alongside an emergency education plan to accommodate the growing number of returnee students. Still, Annan admitted that a planned remote learning program to expand access to education “requires more time” and has yet to be implemented.
The numbers are sobering. Across Syria, about 4 million students are currently enrolled in school, but according to Meritxell Relaño Arana, the UNICEF representative in Syria, roughly 2.5 to 3 million children remain out of school. “The access to education by many children in Syria is difficult. Many of the schools have been destroyed, many of the teachers did not go back to educate and many of the children don’t even have money to buy the school materials,” Relaño told AP. For families like al-Jurok’s, the struggle is constant. “My eldest daughter is very smart and loves to study, but we can’t buy books,” she said, noting that her children help pick olives after school to help the family scrape by on olive oil production.
Teachers are feeling the strain as well. Bayan al-Ibrahim, who teaches at Maar Shamarin Elementary, said many children have fallen behind after years of displacement. “Some families had been displaced to areas where education wasn’t supported or their circumstances didn’t allow them to follow up on their kids’ education,” she explained to AP. The lack of seating and school materials makes it harder for teachers to keep order, and parents struggle to stay involved. “There are no books, so parents aren’t aware what their kids are studying,” al-Ibrahim added.
Despite these hurdles, the reopening of schools is seen as key to the return of displaced people. According to AP, residents in southern Idlib are returning to their villages, and the restoration of educational infrastructure is central to their decision to come back. Hallak said that Maar Shamarin Elementary now hosts around 450 students from first to fourth grade, but demand keeps growing. “We have more students applying, but there is no more space,” he said.
International organizations are stepping in to help. Relaño said UNICEF is working on rebuilding schools, providing temporary classrooms, and training teachers to ensure quality education. The urgency is clear, with hundreds of thousands of refugees returning from abroad—more than one million, according to the U.N. refugee agency. Beyond bricks and mortar, Relaño emphasized the psychological importance of schools. “Many children were traumatized by years of conflict, so they need to go back to safe schools where psychosocial support is available,” she said. Catch-up classes are also being offered to help students who missed years of schooling reintegrate into the education system.
The story of Syria’s schools is, at its core, a story of resilience. In the face of staggering loss and hardship, families are determined to rebuild—not just their homes, but their children’s futures. Yet the road ahead is steep. With winter approaching, classrooms with no windows or heat pose real dangers to children’s health. The lack of supplies and staff threatens to leave a generation behind. And while officials and aid groups are working to address the crisis, progress is slow and the needs are immense.
Still, hope persists. The sight of children bent over their notebooks in battered classrooms, the sound of lessons echoing through halls stripped bare, and the determination of teachers and parents alike all speak to an unyielding desire for normalcy and progress. As Syria’s displaced return home, the fate of its schools will shape not just the recovery of individual families, but the future of the nation itself.
