ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – Rojava University on Sunday criticized a Syrian government decision to limit Kurdish-language instruction to three classes per week, saying that the measure could have negative educational and academic consequences.

The Syrian education ministry on Thursday announced a new plan for Kurdish-language instruction in the country, under which students in Kurdish-majority areas would receive a maximum of three classes in their mother tongue per week.

“Reducing the language of instruction to three weekly classes and relegating it to a secondary language subject, rather than maintaining it as the primary medium for teaching scientific disciplines, will lead to negative educational and academic consequences,” the university said in a statement.

It stressed that studying in one’s mother tongue across different humanities and scientific fields is both an academic and human right, “guaranteed by international standards and conventions.”

“The University asserts that this measure represents a regression from the adopted educational model, a step backward that undermines the continuous progress the region's education sector has witnessed over the past years,” it added.

Over the past twelve years, a “holistic academic system” was established in Rojava (northeast Syria) where Kurdish was the primary language of education and research “across all educational levels,” the university stated, arguing that “the optimal academic solution lies not in sidelining one language in favor of another, but in adopting a bilingual education model” involving both Kurdish and Arabic.

The failure to enshrine Kurdish as an official language in the Syrian constitution, a position it enjoys in Iraq, and the limiting of Kurdish classes to thrice weekly is likely to be met with dismay by many of Rojava's Kurds, for whom mother tongue education was a cornerstone of the autonomous administration.

A Syrian military offensive in Kurdish-majority Rojava at the beginning of 2026 led to the January 29 agreement, providing for the integration of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and other elements of the Kurdish-led administration into the Syrian state.

In the build-up to the integration accord, interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa issued a decree to foster goodwill with Syria's Kurdish population, including recognizing Newroz as a national holiday, recognizing Kurdish as a national language that may be taught in public and private schools in Kurdish-populated areas, and abolishing the effects of the controversial 1962 census in Hasaka province, thus granting Syrian nationality to previously stateless Kurds.

The education ministry initially announced in January that two classes would be offered per week, a stipulation that has changed in the latest implementation update.

The implementation of the decree comes after former SDF chief Mazloum Abdi announced that the Kurdish-led forces have officially been dissolved on Tuesday, with Abdi himself reportedly set to assume a role as a presidential advisor on Kurdish affairs.