Arastan School Transport

Arastan School Transportimage

24 Apr 2015

Some thousands of Syrian children would need to access education outside the formal public system, or they will face limited future prospects and increased exposure to risks. The quality of the environment in Syrian public schools is significant and considered to be a major barrier to the enrollment of Syrian children. Syrian children find the classrooms at the public schools are overcrowded. Moreover, the distance and availability of the schools and with the problems of the transportation have represented significant challenges for Syrian families. The females students who are particularly can be targeted for harassment on their way to school has caused the parents to express some fear for their security. Some parents are preferring to keep their daughters at home rather than sending them to school for education.The Syrian public schools need to enhance their capacity  to enable many students to access more opportunities for education.

There is also a hidden cost of education, such as: transport, learning materials, uniforms, daily pocket money, school-time snacks, etc. These hidden costs can discourage a large number of Syrian families to send their children to school. Some of these families would rather have their children work outside as child labourers to earn more money to sustain their families. Mosaic Syria has established Arastan School that offers valuable educational opportunities to the Syrian children and the most vulnerable families. According to the needs assessment that was conducted by Arastan School, students females are concerned about the level of violence on the way to and from school. Arastan School has provided the students with safe transportation (mainly for girls) that are living in isolated areas which they can not access to any schools nearby. 

Arastan School has demonstrated its commitment to support the vulnerable Syrian children to continue with their formal schooling in their areas and to offer a relief to the public education system that is strained due to a deteriorating economic climate. Arastan School has started a transportation initiative that offers many children chances to go to school and not to stay at home. Some Syrian students were unlucky and had faced disruption in their education for months or years without being able to go to school. Many children are too scared to walk the distance on their own to school. Arastan school has agreed to provide two minibus cars to be used as means of transport for the female students to drive them from their houses that are located in further distant to Arastan school. The school is making sure that no child gets left behind.

The number of students that use the transport buses has increased rapidly. The transport initiative now has allowed many children to reach school every day from different locations. The students are so happy that they can go to school again to pursue their future education. Many Students had to leave their schools to support their families, or they have suffered losing members of their families. Other students live very far from the school, so the buses initiative has allowed many students to go back to school every day. The school buses initiative is a vital pillar to assist female students to come to school.