Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will initiate a schools twinning programme between schools in England and schools in Syria.

The Department for Education has no plans to initiate a twinning programme between schools in England and schools in Syria. Before the conflict, the British Council’s Connecting Classrooms programme operated in Syria and provided a funded opportunity for teachers in the UK and the Middle East North Africa region to meet and share best practice.

Whilst this programme is not currently active in Syria, schools in Jordan, where there are a number of Syrian refugees, and schools in Lebanon, where there are high proportions of Syrian pupils, continue to participate in the programme. Once the situation in Syria stabilises, the Department for Education would be very supportive of Syria re-joining the British Council’s Connecting Classrooms programme.