Al-Hasakah Governor joins the Kurds in their celebration of Kurdish Language Day

The governor of Al-Hasakah stressed that the Kurdish language is not just a cultural heritage and that work is ongoing to support it and enhance its presence and preserve it for future generations.

Governor Noureddine Ahmed posted on his page on the "X" platform,  on the occasion of the  Kurdish Language Day, in which he said: "On the Kurdish Language Day, we affirm that the Kurdish language is not just a cultural heritage, but an inherent right that cannot be marginalized or excluded, and is an integral part of our identity and existence."

He added that the Kurdish language has withstood over the decades, in the face of attempts to obliterate, and has remained alive by the will of its people and will remain firmly established and present in various fields of life, stressing: "We continue to support it, strengthen its presence, and preserve it for future generations."

Al-Hasakah Education: Integration of the Educational Sector in its Final Stages

The Director of Education in Al-Hasakah, Adnan Berri, announced that the process of integrating the educational sector in the province has entered its final stages, stressing that the directorate has become the only administrative reference for the educational process, and that the integration of educational complexes is nearing completion in preparation for the transition to the unification of curricula and languages at the beginning of the next academic year.

Berri said in statements to the Kurdish news agency Hawar that the implementation of the January 29 agreement is based on two axes,  an administrative axis that includes the integration of the Education Authority and educational complexes within the structure of the directorate, and an educational axis related to the curriculum format and the language of instruction, which will later determine the mechanism of sorting teachers and distributing the surplus.

He explained that the first phase of administrative integration has been completed "smoothly", and that all employees from the two structures are currently practicing their duties within the Directorate of Education, and that the  integration of the complexes south of al-Hasakah has been completed, while work is underway to merge the rest of the complexes before the end of the academic year.

A unified Syrian curriculum starting next year

Berri pointed out that the integration of teachers within schools will begin after the end of the academic year, pointing out that the number of employees after the merger reached about 33 thousand, and that the distribution of cadres will be based on the final version of the curriculum.

Berri stressed that the current academic year will continue according to the curricula previously applied, while a unified Syrian curriculum will be adopted starting next year, taking into account the specificity of some regions and components, especially with regard to the Kurdish language.

The Director of Education considered that the file of the recognition of certificates and equivalencies is a "sovereign issue" subject to the work of the negotiating committees between the government and the Autonomous Administration, and  regarding the exams, Berri said that the Directorate has equipped the exam centers in 6 regions this year, compared to only two areas last year, stressing that the exams will be conducted under the supervision of the Ministry of Education, including the Autonomous Administration schools in Al-Hasakah and Qamishlo.

Work is underway to adopt names for schools that take into account the specificity of local components, he said, pointing to the adoption of names such as "Nowruz", "Kalbahar" and "Khani", instead of the old names that were associated with previous political references, he said.

Decree 13 and the Kurdish language

The Kurdish language has been officially recognized as a national language in Syria by Presidential Decree No. 13 issued by President Ahmed al-Sharaa on January 16, 2026, in a move described as a historic shift in the state's approach to the cultural and linguistic rights of the Kurdish component.

The decree granted the Kurdish language national status as part of the Syrian identity, without raising it to the level of an official language, prompting parties and human rights organizations to demand that this recognition be included in a binding constitutional text that makes Kurdish a second official language besides Arabic.

 The Ministry of Education has begun to prepare official curricula in the Kurdish language through a specialized committee that adopted the Latin alphabet to teach the Kurmanji dialect. The Kurdish language has been included as an elective subject at the rate of two classes per week in public and private schools in densely populated Kurdish areas, with grades recorded within the total number of students without affecting the cases of success or failure.

Challenges and Obstacles to the Implementation of the Decree

The implementation of the decree faces challenges related to regulating the status of thousands of students who have studied in the past years in informal Kurdish curricula, as talks are taking place between state institutions and educational bodies that were under the Autonomous Administration to reach a legal formula for the recognition and equivalence of certificates.

 Difficulties  on the ground have emerged in implementing the new visual identity of the Kurdish language in government institutions, such as identification boards in official buildings, and this happened at the Judicial Palace in Al-Haksa, amid local demands to fully enforce the decree in the public space.

Kurdish Language Day

Every  year on May 15, Kurds around the world commemorate the Kurdish Language Day (Rojbûna Zimanê Kurdî), an occasion that has become a symbol of cultural identity and a long path of struggle to preserve and develop the Kurdish language through generations.

The first issue of Hawar magazine was published in 1932 in Damascus by the Kurdish emir and intellectual Jaladat Badrakhan, who made a historic shift when he adopted the Latin alphabet for the writing of Kurdish (the Kurmanji dialect), opening the door to a linguistic and cultural renaissance whose effects are still present today.

This day represents an annual station to renew awareness of the Kurdish language, affirm its presence in education, culture and media, and strengthen the connection of Kurdish communities around the world to their linguistic roots and common identity.