New Numbers Demonstrate Need for Regional Scholarships

Images are in the news every day now of Syrians entering Greece, Serbia, Hungary, Austria, and Germany. They are traveling north because they have lost hope in their home country and its neighbors. Often that hope is based on the search for an education for themselves or their children.  As the graphics below demonstrate, the need for scholarships for Syrians vastly outweighs the number that is available. Only 6 percent of Syrian youth in the 18 to 24 age group are now in higher education, when before the war, more like 25 percent of them were enrolled. The cost of giving these young people an education would be much lower in countries neighboring Syria than in the European Union, as research by SPARK, an Amsterdam-based NGO that specializes in higher education in conflict-affected countries, shows. Sometimes numbers speak louder than words. That may be the case here.