AMMAN:
The Secretary General of the Amman based Association of the Arab Universities
(AARU) Omar Salamah estimated the number of Syrian refugee students enrolled in
the Jordanian universities in the 2018-2019 academic year at around 6,700,
majoring in different scientific fields.
Salamah
said in a statement issued recently that the AARU has carried out a special
project to support Syrian students taking refuge in Lebanon, Iraq’s Kurdistan
and Jordan.
The
project, which is funded by the United Nations along with Turkey, Germany and
the Mediterranean Universities Union (UNIMED), is carried out in cooperation with
the National Erasmus. It seeks to help partner countries’ universities enroll
Syrian students in different academic majors through setting specialized units
to help and employ them.
He said
that the mission of these units is to support Syrian refugee students in
resuming their academic and professional lives.
Salamah
said that in addition to scholarships, the project offers training courses for
Syrian students in various professional and technical spheres, teaches
languages and organizes field science trips and activities to heritage sites in
countries that are included in the project.
He
highlighted that the AARU keeps in touch with the universities that enroll
Syrian refugees to follow up on their academic progress.
Syrian
students in Jordan are concentrated in the Yarmouk University, Zarqa University
and Al-Zaytoonah University, he added.
The AARU
will keep supporting the Syrian students and, in cooperation with Jordanian and
Arab universities, will work on offering them with what they need to continue
their higher education in an environment that stimulates creativity, he
explained.
He
stressed the need to provide a suitable environment for teaching and scientific
research for Syrian students to harness necessary skills required to get a
future job in the host countries or in their own in case they return after the
end of the crisis.
Salamah
emphasized that the AARU has been contacting international organizations to
offer scholarships for Syrian refugees in universities all over the world.