Ghina al-Imam is six and has adorable bunches in her hair, but she was sobbing quietly and her face was streaked with tears on her first day at school in Damascus. The teachers were considering whether to call her mother – her mobile phone number is pinned carefully to the child’s blue tunic – but by the mid-morning break they had managed to coax her out to the playground to join the other girls and boys.



Smiley faces and brightly coloured posters welcomed the new arrivals this week. Parents fretted. “Everything is normal, or as normal as possible in the circumstances,” said Mona Hamoud, the principal of the al-Samah bin Malek al-Khawlani primary school. But she presides over an exceptionally crowded establishment – 1,350 pupils in 24 classes, an average of 56 in each. And internally displaced people (IDPs) – or refugees – make up 65% of the total.

“I have children of nine, 10 or 11 who have not been to school since the war began, so we have a special flexible curriculum to help them catch up and reintegrate,” she explained.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Al-Samah bin Malek al-Khawlani primary school in Damascus. Photograph: Ian Black/Guardian

Muhammad, starting in fourth grade, had returned from Lebanon where he did not attend school. He looked delighted as crayons, exercise books and maths sets were distributed in brand new satchels – red for girls, black for boys. They bear the logo of the UN children’s agency, Unicef, which is playing a vital role in ensuring that free education remains available in a country that is being torn apart by conflict and whose citizens are fleeing in droves.

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“Yes we are happy on our first day at school!” the six-year-olds chanted in formal Arabic after a cheery presentation from Unicef’s Ibrahim Farah, coordinating an ambitious “back to learning” campaign with the Syrian ministry of education. One boy, Ahmed, declared gravely that he wanted to be a doctor. Another child slept soundly at the back of the class.

In Syria today, echoes of the crisis are never far away: every so often, in the distance, the thud of outgoing fire can be heard, directed at the rebels who lob mortar shells into Damascus. In al-Midan, just down the road, is a police station that was targeted in a suicide bombing – blamed by the regime and the opposition on each other – in the early stages of the uprising against Bashar al-Assad. Now there are fruit and vegetable stalls under the flyover where the bomber’s head and limbs were displayed in a sack.

Not surprisingly, there is a strong emphasis on patriotism. The school’s name recalls the Arab conquest of Spain in the seventh century. The president’s picture decorates every classroom, along with the words of the national anthem and posters about the Ba’ath pioneers – Syria’s equivalent of the Scouts. The outer walls are painted with slogans praising Assad – “a nation led by him will not kneel” – and the Syrian Arab Army for “defending our homes”.

Hamoud singled out the deteriorating economic situation and overcrowding in IDP shelters as the biggest challenges her school faces. And, of course, the inescapable, routine dangers of normal life.

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“The problems we see are not usually educational but psychological ones related to fear and violence,” said Mariam Mahmoud, a counsellor. “Aggression is common – pupils hitting each other because of what they have seen in real life and on TV.”

Other issues are less obvious. By the entrance Abu Muhammad and his wife were looking miserable after failing to register their two children: the school has a good reputation and, unlike others, operates only one shift. The disappointed couple were unable to provide proof of a local address, something that would require dealing with the security agencies. Not everyone wants to risk that if they have left rebel-held areas and are living in temporary accommodation under government control.

In places such as nearby Douma and other parts of the eastern Ghouta region – ruled by what the authorities call “terrorists” and by the UN, “armed opposition groups” (AOGs) – schools do operate, and the staff are still paid by the central government, on paper at least. But that is the limit of its involvement. “We cannot go there and we are not allowed to go there,” said Wafik al-Hadid, the education ministry’s director of planning and international cooperation.

Worries are growing about the imposition of conservative curricula by Islamist insurgents. And in Douma, according to Médecins sans Frontières, 104 of the 377 people killed in government attacks last month were under 15. Unicef is committed to supporting education everywhere – including in such “hard to reach” locations, where one third of all pupils live – but it struggles to raise the necessary funds. Bureaucratic hurdles are as difficult to overcome as the physical risks.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Pupils’ first day at the Isaaf Kheiry school in Damascus. Photograph: Ian Black/Guardian

Until 2011 Syria’s state educational system won high marks for standards and enrolment relative to the region. Now 2 million children are out of school inside the country and 700,000 more abroad. One in four schools has been damaged and cannot be used; 50,000 teachers have fled or been killed.

“Education is literally under fire,” said Hanaa Singer, Unicef’s local director. “Syria is a country in trauma. The children are traumatised. Wherever I go, in Homs, Aleppo or Latakia, the only time I see children laughing is when they are in school.”

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The good news is that 3.8 million are still studying. In the centre of Damascus is the Isaaf Kheiry school, a charitable foundation run by the local business community. It has gone beyond its old remit of schooling orphans to take in children hit by what many simply call “the events”– a euphemism that often includes the death or detention of a parent, usually described tactfully as “missing”.

Amal Muhammad, a teacher, said the war had changed her too: “I used to be quite harsh but I am more tolerant now. If children are late arriving, or don’t finish their homework, I know they have had to get through all the checkpoints and that conditions are hard at home.”

The will to learn in these desperately trying circumstances is impressive. Majid, 12, is a Palestinian boy who used to live in the Yarmouk refugee camp, now partly occupied by Islamic State. He has a good command of English and is keen to demonstrate it.

Abdel-Hadi, a skinny 10-year-old Syrian, doesn’t know how his father died but his mother lives in a “hot area” under government siege. “The roads are closed” is a common way of explaining that. Until recently Abdel-Hadi had moved between his grandmother and other relatives. Now, the staff hope, he will enjoy greater stability and privacy as a weekly boarder.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Abdel-Hadi’s ambition is to be Syrian vice-president. Photograph: Ian Black/Guardian

Abdel-Hadi wants to study “everything” and his ambition for the future is an unusual one – and almost without limit: “I want to be vice-president,” he declares proudly. In the mind of a loyal Syrian child, the top job looks unlikely to be available for some time to come.