(Adnkronos) – The Syrian Ministry of Education has announced a new plan for teaching Kurdish in areas of the country where the Kurdish population is in the majority. The language will become a compulsory subject, with three lessons per week at all school levels, while the system that provided for the teaching of most subjects in Kurdish will be progressively phased out. “The study of the Kurdish language, as a national language, will be allowed in public and private schools in areas where Kurdish citizens constitute a significant proportion of the population,” reads the decree, which also stipulates that the grade will contribute to students’ final evaluation.
The measure is based on a presidential decree issued in January that recognizes Kurdish as a “national language”. In Kurdish-majority areas of northeastern Syria, known to Kurds as Rojava and autonomously administered for the past 15 years, most subjects have so far been taught in Kurdish. For the next academic year, considered a “transitional period”, students will be able to choose whether to follow subjects such as social studies, history, geography, and philosophy in Kurdish or Arabic, but this option will not be maintained in subsequent years.
