MORE than 400,000 Syrian refugee children in Turkey are unable to attend school, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said yesterday, calling on the international community to provide “urgent financial and technical support.”

The US-based group cited a language barrier, integration issues and financial difficulties to explain the children’s poor access to education in Turkey.

HRW noted that Ankara had allowed them access to the Turkish schooling system, but it said that the government should provide language support and better disseminate information about school enrolment to the refugees.

It also urged Turkey to grant work permits to adult refugees to tackle the high rate of child labour among refugee children.

“Failing to provide Syrian children with education puts an entire generation at risk,” said Stephanie Gee of the HRW refugee rights programme.

“With no real hope for a better future, desperate Syrian refugees may end up putting their lives on the line to return to Syria or take dangerous journeys to Europe.”

Turkey is host to more than two million refugees from Syria of whom 708,000 are children of school age .

The government gave permission to Syrian refugees to attend state schools last year, but just over 212,000 were enrolled at primary and secondary level institutions.

HRW said that, while 90 per cent of children of families living in refugee camps had enrolled in schools, most refugees live outside the camps, where “only 25 per cent of school-age children were enrolled in school.”

It added that sending children to school would reduce the risk of early marriages or military recruitment.