ABSTRACT
The ongoing conflict in Syria, now almost in its tenth year, has taken a heavy toll on young people’s lives and their developmental trajectories. Education and learning have been particularly constrained. In Jordan the government has opened up schools to Syrian children and adolescents, and donors and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have invested heavily in scaling up formal and informal learning pathways. Yet enrolment rates remain low, especially for secondary and tertiary education.
This chapter focuses on the most vulnerable Syrian refugee adolescents living in Jordan, including early-married girls, working adolescents and those living in remote areas. Using a capabilities framing of the right to education, we examine barriers and gendered differences in access to education for refugee adolescents living in three distinct settings: host communities, informal tented settlements (ITSs) and refugee camps. Drawing on mixed-methods data collected in 2018 and 2019, we explore the interplay of geography, gender norms, individual and family aspirations, and community and system-level factors in shaping access to formal and non-formal education and learning, and the acquisition of academic and non-academic core competencies.
