ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Kurdish-language education must be guaranteed under Syria’s constitution rather than limited to a few hours a week in schools, senior Kurdish politician Elham Ahmed said Monday, as Kurdish authorities push for broader cultural rights amid efforts to integrate their institutions into the Syrian state.
Speaking at a seminar at the University of Sulaimani on developments in northeast Syria (Rojava) and the ongoing integration process, Ahmed said Presidential Decree No. 13, issued in January, was a step toward recognizing Kurdish identity but fell short of guaranteeing education in the mother tongue.
“What we are currently fighting for is to have education in the Kurdish language enshrined in the constitution. This is our natural right as Kurds, and no one can treat it as a favor granted to us,” Ahmed said.
Her remarks come as Damascus and the Kurdish authorities in Rojava seek to implement a January agreement that ended weeks of fighting and laid out a framework for integrating Rojava’s military and civilian institutions into Syrian state structures.
Kurdish leaders have made constitutional recognition of their language, particularly in education, a central demand in the talks, seeking to preserve cultural and educational rights established during more than a decade of autonomous administration in Rojava.
Ahmed said the presidential decree had both positive and negative aspects, welcoming its recognition of Kurds as an indigenous component of Syria while criticizing its limited provisions for Kurdish-language education.
Syria’s education ministry earlier announced that Kurdish would be taught as a compulsory subject for three hours a week in schools in Kurdish-majority areas three lessons per week plus one weekly activity lesson, while ending full Kurdish-language instruction.
“In the latest meeting held in Damascus, we demanded that the education system be bilingual - in Kurdish and Arabic - and that the English language also be taught,” Ahmed said.
Earlier this month, Ahmed told Rudaw that five Kurdish-language schools were expected to open in the central province of Hama, with similar requests submitted for Daraa in southern Syria.
She also called for Kurdish-language schools in Afrin and Sari Kani (Ras al-Ain), areas with Kurdish populations outside the main territory administered by Kurdish-led authorities.
The proposed schools aim to serve Kurdish communities where the use of their mother tongue has declined over the years.
