Abstract:

The aim of our global study is to analyze the transformations of national systems of education in response to any crisis, political, economic or social. Education is a social institution and therefore highly sensitive to crisis. At the previous stages of our research we studied the internal transformations of national systems of education in Syria, Libya and Iraq. All three countries are currently going through a protracted political and economic crisis, facing the need to overcome the consequences for local educational system at all levels – elementary, secondary and higher education and transform the key elements – learning objectives, content and structure.

However, in each case when a state goes through a prolonged political crisis, heavy immigration of citizens is another ubiquitous trend besides all the internal factors mentioned above. As an example, the Syrian crisis became one of the massive social crises of our time: thousands of refugees flooded into the territory of the European Union, constituting full proof that Syrian crisis was not a local Middle Eastern problem, but a global conflict that would have the after-effect for all states of Western and Eastern Europe.

This study is an attempt to analyze the other side of the Middle Eastern crisis and consider the process of integration of Syrian refugees into new educational environment. Of course, the problem of psychological adaptation to new conditions and the social integration of representatives of another culture into European society are also the essential parts of the study. However, within the framework of this study, we were mainly focused on the main differences between the systems of higher education system in Syria and European countries (by the example of Germany) in order to suggest which transformations in educational systems of host countries can potentially facilitate the integration of refugee students.

The results of the study will be useful for the countries in crisis, as well as for EU countries, Eastern Europe and North America that are faced with the need to transform their national education systems in order to adapt them to the needs of refugee students.

Keywords:

Syria, Syrian Arab Republic, education, integration, educational environment, system of education, crisis in education, refugee students.