Syria's Educational Structure: Political Curricula
Another obstacle presented by education in Syria is its goals and curriculum, and their influence on the quality of women’s education. The Ba’ath party of Syria ultimately invested in education as “a means of both ensuring progress and indoctrinating and controlling the masses” (Groiss 7). This is evident in its goals, stated explicitly in Syria’s constitution in Articles 23: “The nationalist socialist education is the basis for building the unified socialist Arab society. It seeks to strengthen moral values, to achieve the higher ideals of the Arab nation, to develop the society, and to serve the causes of humanity” (Syrian Arab Republic). Furthermore, the main objectives of Syrian curricula are to educate citizens who are “rooted in their Arab homeland, having deep faith in their Arab nationalism and its objectives” (UNESCO World Data on Education).
While nationalist narratives within educational dialogues could be construed as political propaganda or mass indoctrination, it is extremely common for such language to be in place in state-provided education. The vast majority of the world’s countries include such nationalist agendas in their curricula. Obviously, the goals of these messages in Syria is quite useful to individuals and society as a whole: “[d]eveloping citizens with a mature integrated character in all ethical, mental and social dimensions, able to establish positive, useful and happy relations with their family and society, to appreciate arts and culture, and to respect ethical and spiritual values and human rights” (UNESCO World Data on Education). Though it would be ideal for all students to receive an objective education free from persuasive political influence, it is unlikely that such a curriculum will occur. Therefore, the major problem with the socialist dialogue that is invested in Syrian curriculum is not its existence; it is, rather, how its overall message affects female students.
The messages of Syrian nationalist narratives involved in education revolve primarily around Pan-Arab unity, national and socialist struggle, and a personal love and investment in work (UNESCO World Data on Education). This was complemented at the start of the Assad rule by a huge state program, which “called on women to work as clerks in the expanding public sector. […T]he state guaranteed women as well as men employment in the public sector if they held intermediate school diplomas or college degrees” (Sparre 8). In this way, the educational system instilled in female students the Syrian nationalist narrative of the importance of contribution to society through employment, and “an obligation to society, which they can fulfill only through a close relationship to the new state, whose purpose is to serve society and the people” (Sparre 8). Therefore upon completion of their academic program, these educated women were guaranteed positions within the government, making their education profitable and worthwhile, and providing the personal feeling of accomplishment and meaningfulness within society. This program of guaranteed state employment for educated women continued until the 1990s, where this politically mobilization of women into the workforce ceased when the state could no longer fund this mass employment; unemployment has increased ever since (UNESCO). Furthermore, since this system’s degradation and increased inflation, “the average salary of a public-sector worker in the 2000s is far from enough to cover the necessary expenses of a family” (Sparre 9). Since the Syrian government can no longer afford to have women continuing their education and seeking public sector employment, the national discourse on women’s education and equality has shifted considerably to encourage women to be wives and mothers rather than wage-earners (Haddad 46).
Therefore, the construction of the Syrian education system was oriented for one set of outcomes; since that outcome, government employment, has become scarce or obsolete, the educational message now presents a problem. The narrative of socialist struggle and the duty of contribution to a collective society is now irrelevant to female students, who are encouraged by their families, societies, Islamic religious leaders, and cultural media to become homemakers. Since the 1990s, “references to an Islamic moral code and lifestyle are more common in the family, as well as in society in general. In Islamic discourses women most often are presented as mothers and housewives” (Sparre 9). As a result, the socialist narratives within Syrian educational structure have rendered it basically useless to girls.
Consider an example based on statistical probabilities. A Syrian girl from a poor family in a rural area is likely to attend state-funded primary school, where “teachers communicate the ideology of the Ba’th Party on every possible occasion, instructing students in detail on what the Ba’th leadership, and particularly the late president, Hafez al-Asad, has stated on various issues” (Sparre 6). The explicit goals of this stage of education include “bringing up citizens who believe in their Arab nationality and understand its liberal characteristics,” and over the course of six years, she will learn this through a number of subjects, including religious education, Arabic language, social studies, musical and art education (UNESCO World Data on Education). At the end of these mandatory six years, in 2008 there was a 28.7 percent chance that she might fail the final examination that would allow her to move to secondary school; furthermore, there was a 17.7 percent chance that her family would prefer that, rather than repeat a year of primary education, she drop out of school altogether to get married and start her own family (UNESCO World Data on Education, Central Bureau of Statistics). However, if she does pass this examination and move to secondary education, she will spend one-eighth of every school week focusing on socialist education, the same amount she would spend on mathematics and twice as much as she would spend on home economics (UNESCO World Data on Education). Meanwhile, her family, her religious leaders, and other people she would interact with in her society would emphasize to her the necessity of home-making skills, and that “the primary role of the woman is as a wife and mother at home, and her most important function is as a nurturer and educator. A mother working away from home never could carry out this work in a satisfactory manner” (Sparre 10). As a result, she hears two conflicting narratives every day: from school, of her duty to her society to study and to work, and from society, of her duty to marry and bear children. As seen in Table 11, the majority of females that complete school never enter the workforce (Huitfeldt 23).
This presents the major obstacle to women’s education in Syria. The schooling that she receives emphasizes a path that she is very unlikely to take; when she does not enter the workforce, the majority of her schooling becomes irrelevant. Knowing this, or experiencing it at some level by losing a pair of helpful hands at home when their daughter goes to school, many Syrian parents cannot see the importance of extending their daughters’ education. The obstacle of Syria’s educational structure, therefore, is the socialist narrative of the educational curricula that render it immediately unnecessary for many Syrian girls. This contributes to high dropout rates after the primary level, and low employment after every level. An adjustment of curriculum to teach skills that are more relevant to female students, or as previously suggested, make education more profitable than marriage, could combat this obstacle in the Syrian Arab Republic.