Type: Explainer

Date: February 06, 2026

Summary

This article examines the teachers’ strike in northwest Syria as more than a temporary disruption to schooling, framing it instead as a reflection of deeper structural challenges within the education system. Since early February 2026, over 1,100 schools—serving at least 300,000 students—have participated in the strike, placing the education sector at a critical crossroads between safeguarding students’ right to learning and addressing teachers’ professional rights.

The article identifies the main drivers of the strike as low wages, chronic underfunding, the absence of meaningful negotiation mechanisms, and the gradual erosion of teachers’ professional and social status. It argues that the strike signals a shift in the relationship between teachers, authorities, and society, with demands increasingly centred on professional dignity and educational justice, rather than salary alone.

It also explores the challenges of teacher representation, highlighting tensions between newly formed unions and informal grassroots groups, and the implications this has for effective dialogue and negotiation. The article outlines possible responses by authorities—from genuine negotiation to administrative containment or legal pressure-warning that superficial solutions may end the strike temporarily but risk its recurrence in more complex forms.

The article concludes that the strike could become an opportunity for meaningful reform if treated as an institutional warning rather than a short-term operational crisis. This would require rethinking education financing, protecting the professional status of teachers, strengthening representative structures, and establishing sustainable negotiation mechanisms that balance teachers’ rights with students’ access to education.