While the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), or Rojava, faces contant incursions and invasion attempts by Turkey, and continues to rely on its self-defence capabilities for stability, the new school term will start on 12 September for hundreds of thousands of children.

The Jazira Region Education and Teaching Committee said that 19 new vocational middle schools have recently been opened, Hawar News Agency reported.

Rohat Xelil, the co-chair of the committee, said that text books would be ready for distribution when the schools opened.

She also indicated that 20,000 teachers were ready to teach in the schools in the region.

Meanwhile Mekseb El Seyah, co-head of the Materials Office, said that the text books and other materials for all 12 grades as well as those for pre-school were in three languages: Kurdish, Arabic and Assyrian, and that the materials were revised each year in accordance with recent scientific and cultural developments.

Although the total number of students in Rojava has risen to 863,000 this year, it has been decided that there will be no more than 15 students in each classroom, to maintain the necessary distance between students as a protective measure against covid-19.

There will be medical teams monitoring the schools, and the students, teachers and supporting staff at schools will be required to wear masks amd maintain personal hygiene. Large gatherings will not be permitted.

Rojava has managed to become a haven providing relative stability during the Syrian civil war despite attempts by the Islamic State (ISIS) to invade the region.

After the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a self-defence force in Rojava, defeated ISIS with the logistics, intelligence and air support of the International Coalition led by the US, Turkey then started attempts to invade parts of the region.

As Turkey and armed groups affiliated with it try to expand their hold, they continue to act freely, unconstrained by the United Nations or other international institutions or states.