When adding the hijab to illustrations of women and removing lessons on citizenship and democratic participation become priorities for Syria’s Ministry of Education, Syrians have every right to question the kind of education awaiting their children and the values the new authorities intend to instil in future generations.
Revisions to several school textbooks for the 2026–2027 academic year have triggered widespread criticism. Comparisons between older and newer editions revealed the removal of images depicting women, children, artworks and sculptures, alongside the addition of hijabs or full‑length robes to female illustrations. Lessons on local government, political life, citizenship, the media and democratic participation were also deleted.
Individually, some changes may appear minor. Taken together, they raise serious concerns about the ideological direction of Syria’s educational reform. Is the Ministry of Education seeking to free schools from the Assad regime’s legacy, or is it preparing to replace one form of ideological guardianship with another?
Syrian journalist Mohammed al‑Salloum published side‑by‑side comparisons documenting changes to photographs, illustrations and content. On 24 October, the fact‑checking platform Taakkad released its own review, confirming the removal of lessons from the sixth‑grade social studies textbook and alterations to images of women, artworks and sculptures.
The significance of these revisions lies in their implications for education itself. Removing lessons on democratic participation deprives children of essential knowledge about their rights and their relationship with society and the state. Adding a hijab to an illustration conveys an implicit message about the model of womanhood deemed acceptable for inclusion in schoolbooks.
Legitimate questions follow. What makes an unveiled woman unsuitable for a Syrian child to see? What educational harm could result from viewing a sculpture or a painting? Why should lessons on citizenship disappear at a moment when preparing future generations for civic engagement ought to be a national priority?
These concerns do not reflect opposition to the hijab, which remains a legitimate personal and religious choice, nor hostility toward the religious values of Syrian society. They concern the right of Syrians to see themselves represented in their children’s textbooks, and the right of children to encounter the diversity of their society without having it filtered through narrow sectarian or social prescriptions.
The Ministry’s Justifications and the Questions Left Unanswered
In response to the criticism, the Ministry of Education issued a statement on 26 October asserting that only one round of curricular revisions had been made since the fall of Bashar al‑Assad’s regime. Those revisions, it said, were introduced in 2025 and announced in January of that year.
The ministry explained that the changes aimed to remove the former regime’s symbols and ideological content, particularly in social studies and Islamic education textbooks. It claimed to be developing modern curricula that respect Syria’s diversity, cultivate citizenship and belonging, and strengthen pupils’ capacities for critical thinking and problem‑solving. It also announced the completion of a national curriculum framework and new standards for curricular development.
Yet the statement offered no detailed answers to the specific examples raised by journalists and activists. It did not explain the educational reasoning behind the removal of particular lessons or the alteration of particular images. Nor did it clarify whether all disputed changes dated from the 2025 revision or whether some were introduced later.
A clear gap emerges between official declarations and the practices revealed by published comparisons. Claims of respecting diversity ring hollow when revisions diminish its visual representation. Assurances about promoting citizenship lose credibility when independent reviews confirm that lessons devoted to the subject have been removed.
The ministry’s assertion that the curricula respect all components of Syrian society is insufficient. It should publish the standards guiding its decisions, explain the rationale for each alteration, identify who proposed and approved it, and allow public access to the records and recommendations used by the relevant committees.
Public education is a national responsibility. Neither the ministry nor the governing authorities can claim exclusive ownership of it.
From Removing Assad’s Glorification to the Danger of Rewriting History
There are compelling educational and moral grounds for removing material that glorifies the Assad regime. For decades, Syrian education was used to perpetuate a cult of personality, subordinate history to party ideology and present political loyalty as a national virtue.
Following the regime’s collapse, a thorough review of this legacy was both natural and necessary. Removing photographs, slogans and other propaganda was an essential step toward restoring educational integrity.
However, liberation from the former regime’s narrative should open the way to a more accurate, pluralistic and independent understanding of history. It must not become an opportunity to impose a new official account shaped by the ideological preferences of the current authorities.
Lawyer and human rights activist Michel Shammas raised concerns about changes to the presentation of historical events. He criticised what he described as portraying the martyrs of 6 May as conspirators against the Ottoman Empire and Arab revolutionaries as rebels.
If such formulations have indeed been adopted, they warrant rigorous scholarly scrutiny. Historians may reinterpret past events, but presenting a single partisan narrative as unquestionable truth reproduces one of the gravest failings of authoritarian education.
A curriculum that claims to cultivate critical thinking cannot credibly do so while teaching predetermined historical judgements that conceal the multiplicity of interpretations and contexts.
Schools in a new Syria should equip pupils to understand and debate history, and teach them to distinguish between facts, interpretations and ideological positions.
The Values of the Majority and the Rights of Other Syrians
One of the most troubling aspects of the debate is the suggestion that the values of the majority should determine the images and content presented in school curricula.
During an appearance on the television programme “Syria Today,” Atef Nammous, president of the Syrian Publishers’ Union, emphasised the importance of respecting prevailing social and religious values. He argued that schoolbooks play a fundamental role in instilling values in children.
Although he insisted that he was not advocating the imposition of religious observance on children from other communities, he stressed the importance of respecting what he described as the values of the majority.
This argument touches the core of the state and citizenship Syria seeks to build.
A religious or social majority deserves recognition and respect. Its members have every right to practise their faith and preserve their traditions. Yet demographic reality confers no authority to transform the dominant culture into a compulsory model determining what all Syrian children may see and learn.
A national curriculum must address every citizen. It must accommodate children from religious and cultural minorities, women who wear the hijab and women who do not, conservative and less conservative families, urban and rural communities, and the full range of Syria’s social environments.
Respect for the majority’s values must never become a pretext for making others invisible. Respect for diversity requires neither marginalising nor disparaging the majority’s culture.
A Syrian child, regardless of family background or religious tradition, should feel that the schoolbook addresses that child as a citizen with equal rights.
Reducing the representation of women to a single form of dress sends an exclusionary message that contradicts official commitments to pluralism.
The central question for curriculum designers is how children can learn to respect one another despite differences in belief, appearance and family choices. The ambition to accommodate those differences should take precedence over any attempt to force them into a single mould.
An Obsession with Appearances Amid a Deep Educational Crisis
Educational expert Ammar Haroun criticised the alterations to textbook illustrations, arguing that they place undue emphasis on appearances at the expense of educational substance.
Speaking on “Syria Today,” Haroun stressed that values such as cooperation and good conduct are cultivated through educational activities and everyday practice, not through adding a hijab to a drawing.
He welcomed the removal of material associated with the former regime’s narrative, while criticising the haste of the revisions. He called for educational specialists, university academics and parents to participate in drafting and reviewing curricula.
His observations gain significance when considered against the profound crisis afflicting Syria’s education sector. While officials focus on altering illustrations, schools struggle with shortages of textbooks and teaching staff. Teachers need training, teaching methods require improvement, and excessive material burdens existing curricula.
Haroun noted that some schools had still not received textbooks by the time of his appearance. He called for greater investment in teachers and improvements to educational content.
It is difficult to understand priorities that devote administrative attention to changing the clothing of illustrated women while children await textbooks and teachers confront professional and economic hardships.
This does not diminish the importance of images. A schoolbook shapes a child’s understanding of the world. The value of an image lies in its capacity to broaden horizons and introduce diversity and beauty. Using images to impose a restrictive conception of socially acceptable appearance betrays that purpose.
There is particular irony in the ministry’s professed commitment to critical thinking and creativity when some revisions raise doubts about the space it is prepared to allow for art, difference and plurality.
How can creativity flourish if children are shielded from sculptures? How can independent thought develop when images and ideas are concealed because they offend a particular ideological sensibility?
Education Is a National Responsibility That Must Not Be Monopolised
Criticism has extended beyond educational specialists. Journalist Mohammed al‑Salloum described the ministry’s statement as “entirely untrue,” arguing that it failed to explain the changes he documented. Novelist Mansour al‑Mansour called the revisions “a crime committed against Syrians and against the educational process,” accusing those responsible of introducing ideological agendas through the curriculum.
Whatever one thinks of the severity of these judgements, they reflect deep public concern.
The dispute highlights the need to reconsider the mechanisms governing curriculum development and to establish clear divisions of responsibility.
Curriculum preparation and revision should be governed by publicly available educational standards. Independent specialists in education, psychology, history, science, literature and the arts should participate, alongside representatives of teachers, parents and Syria’s diverse communities.
Proposed revisions should be published before approval, allowing public discussion and objection. Written justifications should accompany every substantial deletion or alteration.
It is equally important to distinguish between removing political propaganda, correcting inaccuracies and rebuilding curricula on modern educational principles. Each requires its own standards, and none should be used to justify measures belonging to another.
What Kind of Schools Does the New Syria Need?
Syria now has a historic opportunity to rebuild its institutions after decades of authoritarian rule, war and division. Education will play a decisive role in determining whether this endeavour succeeds.
Schools are where children learn what it means to belong to a country composed of different communities. There they discover their rights and responsibilities, develop independent thought and acquire respect for difference.
The removal of lessons on citizenship and democratic participation, without convincing educational justification, is a troubling sign in a country that urgently needs to cultivate a culture of rights, institutions and civic engagement.
Syria does not need to reproduce ideological indoctrination under a new banner. Syrians have already paid an enormous price for the state’s domination of minds and the transformation of education into an instrument of obedience.
Replacing political slogans with religious ones, exchanging party control for social guardianship or allowing schoolbooks to become arenas for competing factions would be equally unacceptable.
Syrians are entitled to demand clear answers from the Ministry of Education about the reasons for every deleted lesson and altered image. The ministry has a duty to recognise such demands as legitimate public scrutiny, not dismiss them as rumours.
The true measure of the ministry’s success will be its ability to educate a generation capable of thinking, questioning, respecting others and defending its rights and the rights of fellow citizens.
If the new authorities aspire to build a Syria that embraces all its people, they must begin in the classroom. Every Syrian child should be able to recognise a place for themselves in their schoolbooks, regardless of religion, social background or the way their mother or sister chooses to dress.
The gravest danger facing Syrian education after authoritarianism is that the names and portraits on classroom walls may change while the mentality that denies society its right to be different survives intact, reserving for those in power alone the authority to decide what future generations should see and think.
The post Syrian School Curricula: Between Educational Reform and Ideological Control first appeared on The Syrian Observer.