Basic Education and Parents’ Relations with School in Mafraq city, Jordan: Findings from a Mini-Survey of Jordanian and Syrian Refugee Households

This paper presents descriptive statistics from a limited sample survey of Jordanian and Syrian refugee households in the city of Mafraq in northern Jordan. The main objective is to enhance our understanding of the communication between public schools and the households of their students through information from parents. The paper answers such questions as: To what extent is there contact between the schools and the parents; how do they communicate; and who initiates the communication?

Are the parents satisfied with the information from schools? And, what kind of improvements of relevance to their children’s education would they like to see? The survey was carried out within a wider project seeking to find ways to improve the learning environment of Jordanian and Syrian refugee children in Jordan through operational interventions and legal reform. Additional research components of the project have included school visits, focus group interviews with teachers and parents in the governorate of Mafraq, and research into the legal aspects of basic education in Jordan.