Education - Syria
An educator in Hama visits every week to give exercises to this young girl and to train her parents, who can then work with her to develop and improve her capacity to a maximum.
AKDN / Naoura Al-Azmeh
An educator in Hama visits every week to give exercises to this young girl and to train her parents, who can …
AKDN / Naoura Al-Azmeh
Syria | Education
With a high proportion of out-of-school students, particularly girls, the Aga Khan Foundation (AKF) is working to improve learning outcomes. In 2025, AKF reached more than 8,000 learners in Syria, 53 percent of them female. It gave logistical and material support to more than 100 education centres.
8,000+
In 2025, AKF reached more than 8,000 learners in Syria
Education Initiatives
The Aga Khan Foundation’s (AKF) Adolescent Girls’ Education in Crisis Initiative increases the capacity of adolescent girls and young women to make decisions about educational opportunities. This aims to improve gender-responsive and inclusive learning environments.
Vocational courses run under the initiative, with the World University Service of Canada and funding from the Government of Canada, teach skills with local demand behind them, from tailoring and food production to handicrafts. Areej, who is 24 and could not afford a private training centre, is one of the students.
Preschools also give young children somewhere steady after years of disruption. Razan Alshehawe of AKF Syria describes a six-year-old who stopped speaking after her father was killed in the war and whose family could not afford a doctor. After emotional support at preschool, and guidance for her family, she started first grade talking and taking part.
AKF is strengthening life skills teaching for 15 to 18 year-olds, combining wellbeing, academic progress and career preparation in a single curriculum. Adolescent girls and young women gain the information and the confidence to decide their own next steps in education, in learning spaces designed to work for every student. Community-based youth clubs and education hubs widen access to non-formal education, and AKF adapts global resources on teacher training and pluralism for Syrian classrooms.
Young Syrians have set up some of these spaces themselves. Through TAMKEEN, communities voted on which youth proposals to fund, and 28 initiatives went ahead, among them skills centres in underserved areas teaching computer literacy, CV writing and job applications, and training in robotics and 3D printing.
Professional Development of Teachers
We engage in adapting, localising, translating and disseminating courses and other global resources on teacher training, pluralism and other topics. This provides teachers with professional development on creating inclusive classroom environments. AKDN provided training for over 430 teachers and school heads in 2025.