Two mn Syrian children out of school: Unicef

Geneva, Sep 7 (IANS/WAM) The UN Children's Fund (Unicef) has said that it would launch a home-based self-learning programme this month to help Syrian children in conflict hotspots to carry on learning.

Syria's latest official data showed that some 1.9 million students in grades one to nine, or 39 percent of registered students, dropped out of school over the last academic year.

Over 3,000 schools have been damaged or destroyed and over 930 are being used as shelters for the displaced.

Besides, Unicef has procured school bags with stationery supplies for up to a million children in all 14 governorates and distribution is on.

Thousands of teaching-learning kits, recreation supplies and early childhood education material are also being delivered.

Unicef said that an extra $20 million is urgently needed to print and distribute eight million textbooks and rehabilitate school infrastructure.

The UN refugee agency UNHCR said in a report that more than two million refugees have fled Syria's turmoil which broke out more than two years ago and that the number of people displaced inside Syria remains at around 4.25 million.

--IANS/WAM

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