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It is back to school this Monday, September 2 in France and young people are returning to classes this week in many countries including Jordan. Back to school, yes, but not for everyone. The school dropout rate is extremely high in the Hashemite Kingdom and throughout the Middle East region according to Unicef, the United Nations Children's Fund. One-third of adolescents aged 15 to 17 have stopped attending school in the Middle East. The many conflicts do not explain everything: education systems are rarely effective and school curricula poorly adapted to the world of work.
With our correspondent in Amman, Jerome Boruszewski
They are 13% more each year. 13% of new dropouts, those aged 15 to 17 who drop out of school in Jordan. In total, nearly 200,000 adolescents no longer go to high school in the country.
" For girls, we have seen in recent years, among the Syrian refugee population , a growing number of girls who are unfortunately married early. Marriage means stopping their school career. The question many young people ask themselves is "to study for what?" In many countries in this region, the greatest ambition they can have is to become a civil servant. That's more or less the school is preparing, not necessarily for jobs, for the opportunities that young people aspire to today, "says Geert Cappelaere, Unicef's regional director for the Middle East.
In the Middle East and North Africa more than 9 million adolescents are out of school, one in three young people. UNICEF calls on governments to spend 15 to 20 percent of their expenditures on the education sector.
► See also: In Jordan, access to the labor market remains very difficult for women