Council of Europe: 400,000 refugee children without school in Turkey

Despite the best efforts of the Ankara government, hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugee children did not have school places in the last school year, according to the Council of Europe.

"Almost 400,000 refugee children have no access to formal education," a report from the council on racism and intolerance released on Tuesday said.

The report, which covers the period until 17 March 2016, does not deal with the period after Turkey's failed coup on 15 July and the state of emergency that was imposed following it. Ankara promised in February that all 650,000 school-age Syrian refugee children living in Turkey would be able to attend school this year. [embed:render:embedded:node:23274]

There were no figures for the current school year that began on 19 September.

Turkey is a member of the Council of Europe, an international organisation which focuses on promoting human rights, democracy and the rule of law in Europe. Tuesday's report expressed concerns about "the worsening conditions" in Turkey for minorities like refugees, the Kurds, Roma and homosexuals.

The council also criticised the increase in "hate speech" from senior government figures which remained mostly unpunished and which had "massive negative effects."    (dpa)

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