A bad omen? Syria bans women from university courses

Recent changes to university admissions rules in Syria have put a dent in Lin Najab's plans. The 23-year-old from Damascus is one of the few women at her college studying mechatronics engineering.

"My original plan was to pursue a master's degree," Najab told DW. But earlier in October, new rules were announced by Syria's education ministry regarding two newly created colleges, the National University of Defense Sciences and the Syrian University for Security Sciences. The former now restricts certain courses exclusively to male students, and the latter almost all of them.

These new policies could derail Najab's plans. "Now I have to start thinking about other options," she explained. "For example, I might have to move to another province to study."

It is still possible for Syrian women to study the subjects offered by the two new security institutes, but only at other more generalist universities or colleges.

Moving to another province, away from family, brings other difficulties, Najab continued. Student accommodation in dormitories is uncomfortable, but a woman living alone is still frowned upon by conservative Syrians.

"Even if a girl decides she won't give up and wants to go study outside her province, her parents will be opposed to the idea, either for security reasons or because we simply don't want our daughters to go study somewhere else," said Najab.

Females only make up just over 10% of Syria's members of parliament — 22 out of 210 politicians — despite the country's target of 20%Image: LOUAI BESHARA/AFP/Getty Images Controversial ban

The decision to ban women from courses at the new defense and security-related colleges has caused controversy both inside and outside the country.

"Gender doesn't define ability. It should be about high academic standards, the ones I'm trying to meet," Najab argued. "In Syria, we need better education and good graduates, so let's see where the best people are, regardless of gender."

Fatoun Kharbatli, an activist from Aleppo, is also opposed to the idea of limiting certain subjects to one gender. "A person should choose the field in which they see their abilities as lying," she told DW. "We were oppressed for 60 years, so now let's be a nation that keeps pace with global civilization, but without straying from respect and from the basics of our religion.

Qamar al-Yaser, a mother of three in rural Damascus, believes the ban is justified.

The sectors from which women have been excluded "require a strong physique, they need big efforts, travel, organization out in the field and may require staying overnight at remote work sites," said al-Yaser. "These conditions suit young men more than women."

A closer look at some of new admission rules indicate they may be less about restricting Syrian women from certain studies and more about keeping them out of the army. For example, attending the National University of Defense Sciences requires that students serve in the Syrian military. Graduates of the University for Security Sciences must also commit to serving up to 20 years with the internal security forces.

Syria's military leadership has already rejected the integration of Syrian Kurdish female fighters into the Syrian national militaryImage: Sebastian Backhaus/ZUMA/IMAGO Bad omen?

Does this mean Syria's new government is heading in an increasingly restrictive direction when it comes to women's rights?

Human Rights Watch believes so. A few days after the admissions announcement, the organization released a statement criticizing it. "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 organization said.  

Besides the military college bans, there were also other, possibly even more disturbing aspects to the new admissions rules. Restrictions on female students were also applied at a railways institute in Aleppo, oil and gas training organizations in Rmeilan, Homs, Deir el-Zour and Baniyas, and a radio and television course in Idlib. Elsewhere men were barred from kindergarten and nursing school training and midwifery courses. These were to be women-only.

The National Defense Sciences University in Damascus was only founded in mid-2026Image: Rami Alsayed/NurPhoto/picture alliance

All these come on top of a number of other concerning restrictions and worrying comments by officials. The most recent incident in the education sector involved the government's alteration of school textbooks for the 2026-2027 academic year.

The education ministry had already announced it would be removing images and symbols associated with the previous authoritarian regime headed by dictator Bashar Assad. But this week journalists also noticed other changes: Pictures of females in the textbooks who had uncovered hair had been removed, or altered so they were now wearing headscarves. A bare-chested statue pictured in one textbook was now wearing a vest. A picture of men dancing was also gone. 

Common attitudes towards female soldiers

Officials have said that some of the gender-exclusionary rules implemented at the new security institutes were actually carried over from the Assad-era colleges that were fused together to create them earlier this year.

Opposition to female soldiers and military leaders isn't an uncommon attitude in the Middle East's more conservative circles either. Although many Arab countries allow women to attend military colleges and serve, females are often restricted to non-combat or symbolic roles, a 2024 study by the Washington-based think tank, the Middle East Institute, or MEI, reported.

In Syria, while women have historically participated in the security services, it was "in a limited and largely symbolic capacity," the Syrian Center for Defense and Security Studies confirmed in a policy paper this year.

But just because an idea is widespread obviously doesn't make it right, human rights advocates have said.

Even in Germany, women were not allowed to serve in the military until a 2001 landmark court case forced a change Image: Juliane Sonntag/photothek.de/picture alliance Gender stereotypes

"Gender diversity in the security sector allows all citizens of a country to be perceived as equal in all aspects of their duties and obligations to the nation state, including defending it," Dina Arakji, author of the MEI study, argued. "Allowing women to join the military … can advance a society's perspective on females in nontraditional gender-based roles."

The admissions ban gives young Syrian women a message about what they can and cannot do, Syrian activist Rana al-Ash argued in a commentary about the ban for Paris-based organization, the Syrian Women's Political Movement. 

"When these messages are reflected in admission requirements, confronting familial and societal expectations becomes even more difficult because the educational institution endorses them," al-Ash argued.

For Nadra Bunni, a Syrian analyst at the Middle East Institute Switzerland, it's still unclear as to whether "gender-based restrictions will become a feature of the new Syria."

But the anger over the admissions ban also raises another important question, she noted. "Will Syria's new authorities institutionalize an expectation that government decisions can be questioned and potentially reversed," she asked in a commentary for the online publication, Syria In Transition. "Or [will they] teach citizens that their voices carry little consequence?"

Women push for political power and equality in new Syria

To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video

Edited by: R. Casey