EU, World Bank launch school building project for Syrian refugees in Turkey

The World Bank has partnered with a number of Turkish agencies and the European Union to construct schools for Syrian refugees in Turkey, Turkish newspaper Hurriyet Daily reported.

It reported that the EU will provide funding for the project with the aim to support the Turkish government to improve access to education for Syrians refugees. It is believed that as much as 40 per cent of refugee children in Turkey are not in school.

With total financing of 150 million euros from a European Commission grant under the Facility for Refugees in Turkey (FRiT), the World Bank will administer the fund that will be implemented by Turkey’s education ministry.

The project will focus primarily on Turkey’s southeastern and southern provinces, where the majority of school-age Syrians reside, and where Turkey currently hosts the highest concentration of out-of-school students. In addition, the project will facilitate the expansion of education infrastructure investments in Istanbul, Ankara, Bursa, Izmir, Konya and Kayseri, which host a high number of Syrian refugee children and possess a concentration of out-of-school Syrian students at the district level.

The education ministry will construct approximately 56 formal and informal education facilities, which will create more than 40,000 new school spaces.

In a statement, the World Bank’s country director for Turkey, Johannes Zutt, said: “Today, Turkey hosts more refugees than any other country, and about 2.8 million of these refugees are Syrians.”

“To date, the government and people of Turkey have helped most of these refugees to register, find housing and obtain key health and education services. Expanding access to education remains a critical challenge because large refugee numbers are overwhelming local schools and because children, whether or not they are refugees, cannot afford to wait to acquire the learning needed to hold a job,” Zutt said.

“The World Bank is happy to work with the government and the European Union to build the schools needed to enable Syrian refugee children, as well as Turkish host-community children, to obtain work and to contribute productively to the social and economic life of Turkey,” he added.