Three year evaluation of tent school education shows great progress for Syrian refugee children

30/4/2019

Over the past four years Children on the Edge have been working in partnership with Lebanese NGO - Triumphant Mercy, within the refugee communities in Bekaa Valley. Together we worked to provide quality, child friendly education for Syrian refugee children who are unable to access government or UN school provision.

Since 2014, through four tent schools and a Community Centre school in Beirut, we supported education for hundreds of children aged 6 -12. Each school had a bespoke curriculum, refugee teachers, vocational skills opportunities and an environment of warmth and safety, where children could blossom.

Over the last three years we worked with teachers and staff at the tent schools to monitor and evaluate the progress of the children through these schools. The evaluation was extremely positive and at the close of 2018 results showed:

There has been high academic achievement:
Average exam pass rates in 2017 and 2018 consistently over 90%.
Children are more confident:
They have been displaying signs of increased confidence, going from 63% of positive responses to 100% at the end of year three.
Children have enjoyed themselves! :
Enjoyment of education was consistently reported as over 95%.
Children are more positive about the future:
This increased from 42% in year one to 85% in year three.
Children are more willing to talk:
In year one, 70% of children felt able to talk about their fears, compared to 100% of children at the end of year three.

After these years of progress within the tent schools, this January nearly 300 Syrian refugee children have taken another huge step forward by moving to a brand new central school in Zahle.

They now travel from the camps on specially commissioned school buses, along with their teachers. The school has three floors, plenty of playing space outside and even a ‘hydroponics and aquaponics’ station on the roof, growing salad and vegetables through innovative new methods.

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