Australia will contribute $20 million to help Syrian children who have fled their country's ongoing civil war, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has announced.

The funding will be spent under the United Nations' No Lost Generation initiative, which works with children in refugee camps in Jordan and Lebanon.

"Around half of the 2.7 million Syrian refugees are children, and around 70 per cent of these children are not attending school," Ms Bishop said in a statement.

"Children are the most affected of the fighting - an entire generation is being shaped by fear and violence and often without an education."

Ms Bishop said the money would be spent on education and "addressing the violence and displacement" faced by the young refugees.

The money will be split between the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), and Save the Children Australia.

Ms Bishop says Australia has provided over $130 million to the humanitarian response to the Syrian crisis since the conflict began in 2011.

The UNHCR says more than 6 million Syrians have been forced to flee their homes because of the civil war, which pits government forces loyal to president Bashar al-Assad against a disparate collection of rebel groups.