Jerusalem, 19 October, 2026 (TPS-IL) — When Bashar al-Assad’s regime fell, many Syrians and outside observers hoped for a fresh start, including in the classroom. Education is where a state tells children who they are and who their neighbors are. A new report from the research institute IMPACT-se suggests that Syria’s new leadership under President Ahmed al-Sharaa is writing a very different story into schoolbooks, and not a more tolerant one.
The institute examined 130 textbooks for Grades 1-12 from the 2025-2026 national curriculum, which remains in use for 2026-2027. It compared them with Assad-era editions published between 2011 and 2023, using UNESCO-derived standards for peace and tolerance in education. Its verdict is that Syria has swapped one damaging ideological framework for another.
The most pervasive change is in how the curriculum defines belonging. Pan-Arab nationalism and Syrian patriotism have given way to identification with the global Muslim community, the ummah.
A Grade 3 Islamic Studies textbook now says education prepares children for “serving the faith and the ummah” rather than “serving the homeland.” A Grade 9 history book swaps “pride in Arab nationalism and Arabness” for “pride in Islamic civilization.” Law and civic life are recast in religious terms, with shariah and divine authority replacing respect for “the rules of the law.”
The Assad-era curriculum also glorified armed struggle, but in the name of the nation. IMPACT-se finds that the new books keep that glorification and give it a religious justification. Sacrifice “in defense of the homeland” becomes sacrifice “for the sake of Allah,” and “resistance fighters” become “jihad fighters.”
A Grade 4 lesson teaches that the believer draws closer to God through righteous deeds, “foremost among them jihad and resistance,” illustrated with an armed fighter guarding the border. Even a Grade 12 grammar exercise was reportedly edited to insert “martyrdom.” The report also says the books honor figures such as Dalal al-Mughrabi, who took part in the 1978 Coastal Road Massacre in Israel, while giving little space to peace or nonviolent conflict resolution.
The textbooks portray the United States as an imperialist, violent, and destabilizing power. They accuse Washington of invading Iraq for its oil, destroying infrastructure, killing intellectuals, supporting Zionism, fueling regional conflicts, exploiting South America, and pursuing global domination. Iraqi resistance is credited with inflicting heavy losses that forced American withdrawal. The curriculum also presents the United States as morally inferior to Islamic civilization, citing the nuclear bombing of Japan as contradicting Islamic values. Although it acknowledges the American Revolution as an anti-colonial struggle and recognizes American inventions, these positive references are overshadowed by criticism of US militarism and foreign policy.
Jews are generally described in demonizing terms, denied collective history and often portrayed through antisemitic tropes in their conflicts with the Prophet Muhammad and the early Muslims. On occasion, anti-Jewish collective stereotyping is extended beyond the early Islamic context, generalizing treachery, disloyalty, and hostility as inherent and enduring characteristics of Jews. Jewish national identity is rejected outright, with Jews described as “a hodgepodge of peoples, not a single nation.” Syrian Jewish history is absent, and one Grade 6 lesson reportedly teaches that “treason and backstabbing are among the traits of the Jews.”
The portrayal of regional players has flipped. Iran and Hezbollah, once praised as allies, are now condemned for backing the former regime. Turkey and the Ottomans are treated far more warmly: “occupation” becomes “rule,” and Syria’s historic claim to Hatay province in southern Turkey is largely abandoned.
Women are presented mainly as wives and mothers. References to gender equality under Syrian law are gone, as are images of women in public and professional roles. Hijabs have been added to existing illustrations, one lesson advocates the niqab, and women’s rights are increasingly framed as conditional on modesty and family duty.
Units on evolution, natural selection and the origin of life have been removed from the Grade 8 and Grade 11 biology textbooks, along with their coverage of the Big Bang. Elsewhere, nature is increasingly explained through divine agency. A Grade 1 science lesson that once called a scene of animals “Nature’s giving” now calls it “Allah’s giving.”
The report says Kurds and Turkmen are almost entirely absent, and Alawite and Druze references have been removed, renamed, or replaced. Lessons on equal citizenship have been cut back, including historical examples of Muslim-Christian coexistence. Christians appear mostly as a tolerated minority.
None of this came out of nowhere. IMPACT-se says many of the changes track directives the al-Sharaa government issued in January 2025, which the institute reviewed the following month. At the time, the education minister insisted the ministry had only ordered the removal of content glorifying the deposed regime and corrections to Islamic education. Critics at home pushed back against the curriculum changes, some arguing that a caretaker government had no mandate to make them. IMPACT-se’s analysis suggests the final books go well beyond what was promised.
IMPACT-se CEO Marcus Sheff argues that the post-Assad moment offered a rare chance to build a society around inclusion and a shared civic identity, and that the books instead risk pushing a generation further from tolerance. His call is for international leaders to make clear that partnership with Damascus depends on shared values, and that those values must show up in what Syrian children are taught.
Governments weighing sanctions relief, investment and diplomatic normalization with Damascus have plenty of ways to measure the new Syria. The classroom is one of the most telling, and so far, it points to a country changing its ideology rather than leaving ideology behind.
