Impact of Syrian refugees in Jordan on education outcomes for Jordanian youth

Abstract EN

This paper examines the impact of Syrian refugees during the Syrian Civil War on the educational outcomes of Jordanians.

Outcomes we examine include school entry, school enrollment at various levels and advancement from one level to the next.

The project employs a unique data source, the 2016 Jordanian Labor Market Panel Survey that records retrospective educational outcomes for a nationally representative sample of Jordanians.

We employ a difference-in-differences strategy that exploits cross-locality variation in exposure to Syrian refugees across cohorts before and during the influx of refugees.

We find no evidence that greater exposure to Syrian refugee has affected the attainment of Jordanians.

Evidence from the Ministry of Education’s Educational Management Information System (EMIS) suggests that Jordanian schools responded to the influx by adding a second shift in schools in high-Syrian areas, and that teacher-to-student ratio and classroom size are both unaffected by the influx