On Monday, June 16, the head of the Transitional Administration in Syria, Ahmed al-Sharaa, issued a series of presidential decrees concerning Syrian universities and their students.
The decrees introduced several measures aimed at addressing the circumstances of students who dropped out or had exhausted their academic opportunities due to the war. They also included the appointment of new presidents for several universities across the country.
According to the official Syrian News Agency (SANA), one of the presidential decrees granted an exceptional academic year to students who had used up all chances to progress past the university vacation stage between the 2010–2011 academic year and the date of the decree’s issuance.
The decree stipulates that students will benefit from the exceptional year, whether or not they had previously benefited from similar decrees. This applies to students in qualification and specialisation programs, as well as postgraduate students in their coursework year who have exhausted all available opportunities to take exams externally.
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Additionally, the decree grants master’s students who completed their coursework but exceeded the registration period for the thesis stage a new opportunity to register, provided it is done within one academic year from the date of the decree.
The decree also covers master’s and doctoral students who were dismissed between September 15, 2010, and the date of issuance. These students are granted one calendar year from the date of their re-registration, provided this occurs within two years of the decree.
In a separate decree, undergraduate and postgraduate students who dropped out of their studies due to the war, starting from the 2010–2011 academic year to the present, are permitted to apply for reinstatement to their previous programs.
Under this decree, periods of interruption will be considered as suspended registration and will not count against the maximum suspension periods set by university regulations.
Al-Sharaa also issued another decree granting delegated students an additional year to complete their appointment procedures, provided they obtained the required academic qualification after March 15, 2011.
In three separate decrees, the head of the Transitional Administration appointed new presidents for several Syrian universities. Ziad Hassan Abboud was named President of the University of Idlib, Abdul Karim Hussein Qalb al-Lawz was appointed President of the University of Hama, and Munir Muhammad Shukri al-Habib al-Aroud was appointed President of AlFurat University.
Earlier, on February 12, the Syrian Ministry of Higher Education released an updated list of recognised public and private universities and institutes.
The new list excluded private universities in northern Syria that had been included in the list published in January. It featured 39 private universities across various governorates, an increase of 10 compared to the previous list.
