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.
