A pattern of gender-based restrictions spreading across Syria’s educational and training institutions is fueling serious concern about the country’s direction under its transitional government.
Human Rights Watch has directly challenged the new admissions policies, warning that “the discriminatory rules clearly violate Syria’s international legal obligations and are part of a concerning pattern of actions by the transitional authorities that restrict women’s role in state institutions and reinforce gender stereotypes.”
The restrictions extend well beyond Syria’s two newly established security-focused universities, reaching a railways institute in Aleppo and oil and gas training facilities across Rmeilan, Homs, Deir el-Zour, and Baniyas.
A radio and television course in Idlib was also placed off-limits to female students, while men were simultaneously barred from kindergarten teaching, nursing programs, and midwifery training.
Controversy deepened further this week when journalists noticed that school textbooks prepared for the 2026-2027 academic year had been quietly altered, with images of women showing uncovered hair either removed or replaced with headscarves.
Other edits included a bare-chested statue now depicted wearing a vest and the removal of a photograph showing men dancing, changes that went beyond the government’s previously stated goal of stripping Assad-era symbols from educational materials.
The university admissions rules, announced by Syria’s education ministry in October, bar women from most courses at the Syrian University for Security Sciences and from certain programs at the National University of Defense Sciences.
One factor that complicates the picture is that students admitted to the National University of Defense Sciences are required to serve in the Syrian military, while graduates of the security sciences institution must commit to up to 20 years with internal security forces.
Officials have argued that some of the gender-exclusionary policies were simply inherited from the Assad-era colleges merged to create the new institutions earlier this year, though critics say that explanation does not justify maintaining them.
For 23-year-old Lin Najab, a Damascus woman studying mechatronics engineering who had planned to pursue a graduate degree, the rules carry immediate personal consequences.
“Now I have to start thinking about other options,” Najab said, adding that relocating to study in another province could become necessary, a prospect made harder by conservative social attitudes toward women living independently.
Najab frames the issue in terms of national interest as much as personal ambition, arguing that “gender doesn’t define ability” and that Syria’s recovery depends on identifying talented graduates regardless of sex.
Fatoun Kharbatli, an activist based in Aleppo, echoed that view, telling reporters that “a person should choose the field in which they see their abilities as lying,” while also calling on Syria to move forward without abandoning core religious values.
Not all Syrian women oppose the restrictions: Qamar al-Yaser, a mother of three in rural Damascus, argued that the excluded sectors “require a strong physique” and that “these conditions suit young men more than women.”
A 2024 study by the Washington-based Middle East Institute found that while many Arab countries permit women to attend military colleges, they are frequently confined to non-combat or ceremonial functions, a pattern the Syrian Center for Defense and Security Studies confirmed also applied historically within Syria itself.
Dina Arakji, the MEI study’s author, argues that excluding women from security institutions carries costs beyond individual opportunity, noting that “allowing women to join the military … can advance a society’s perspective on females in nontraditional gender-based roles.”
Syrian activist Rana al-Ash, writing for the Paris-based Syrian Women’s Political Movement, highlighted how institutional endorsement amplifies the harm, arguing that “when these messages are reflected in admission requirements, confronting familial and societal expectations becomes even more difficult.”
Nadra Bunni, a Syrian analyst at the Middle East Institute Switzerland, said it remains uncertain whether “gender-based restrictions will become a feature of the new Syria,” but identified a second, equally consequential question running beneath the debate.
“Will Syria’s new authorities institutionalize an expectation that government decisions can be questioned and potentially reversed,” Bunni asked, “or [will they] teach citizens that their voices carry little consequence?”
