Educational Policies for Syrian Children under Temporary Protection in Turkey: A Retrospective Review

Abstract

The aim of this study is to evaluate the educational policies for the Syrian children under temporary protection in Turkey. To this end, a literature review was conducted on current reports financed by international organizations and institutions, and the evaluations for Turkish response to the refugee crisis, key achievements and challenges were discussed in the context of local literature. It was concluded that the short-term perspective for the education of Syrian children replaced with a long-term policy after following different stages. While the initial need for crisis management became the need for uncertainty management, the salient research findings included that the experienced problems stemmed from sociocultural and socioeconomic factors, the Covid-19 pandemic and social inequalities heavily affected educational policies, and limited rationality accompanied instant solutions in decision-making mechanism. In order to develop educational policies for Syrian children, it is recommended to build a new educational paradigm based on empowerment, focusing on costs, developing a national and international communication strategy, training experts, increasing capacity and coordination. More importantly, it is necessary to stop treating education as a panacea and to start seeing it as part of an intervention policy compatible with disciplines such as politics, economics, sociology and law.