Education activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai is reminding the world of the two million Syrian children who are currently not in school, increasing the likelihood of them becoming the ‘lost generation.’

About 700,000 of these children, Yousafzai estimates, are out-of-school in the neighboring countries of Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon that they have migrated to.

"There is a severe lack of school spaces in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, which collectively host some four million Syrian refugees. As support for the Syrian refugee crisis has fallen short – the international community funded just 40 per cent of an $8.4-billion appeal by United Nations agencies last year, leading to cuts in food rations – young Syrian boys have been forced to leave school in order to take menial jobs and help their families make ends meet,” according to The Globe and Mail.

“Syrian girls, meanwhile, are being married off at younger and younger ages as their families seek to ‘protect' their daughters, while at the same time reducing the number of mouths they have to feed.”

Putting an end to this abysmal cycle of survival and increasing quality of life through education is something Yousafzai can be accomplished through the help of wealthy countries in the position to do so.

"It's time for the world to match their commitment to get every Syrian child back in school,” Yousafzai told BBC in an email.

According to sources close to the matter, at least $1.4 billion in funding is needed to help “supply resources such as school places and teachers,” BBC said.

Yousafzai is speaking out just ahead of next week’s Syria Conference in London, where the possibility of helping all Syrian children in the area enroll in school by the end of the next academic year will be addressed.

The conference will include donors from the United Kingdom, Germany, Norway, Kuwait, and the United Nations.

Article by Nicole Gorman, Education World Contributor

2/1/2016