Burnaby School District and Haval Ahmad

Syrian refugee children: An average of three years' missed education The interrupted education is one of the biggest challenges for school districts welcoming Syrian refugee children. "Based on what we have seen so far, and what we are expecting, an average student has missed school for three years, according to CBC. So we're looking at a three years' gap in schooling," said Haval Ahmad, a settlement worker at the Burnaby School District. "Some schools existed in the refugee camps, but really there were no sets of standards." Burnaby school district settlement worker Haval Ahmad says the average refugee student has missed about three years of school. Finding refuge: Syrian arrivals prepare for a new life Now, along with other Syrian refugee children that have been arriving in B.C. in recent weeks, they are beginning the process of being placed in classrooms and filling in the gaps in their education. UNICEF says 13.7 million out of 34 million school age children in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya and Sudan are not getting an education, almost double the number five years ago. The first step for refugee students is to take an English Language Learner assessment. Ahmad says Burnaby is beginning to see the first few registrations of what he expects to be hundreds of new students in the coming months, as Canada settles 25,000 Syrian refugees. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.