Priorities for (non-reformist) reform in Syrian higher education: insights from Damascus

Through the lens of ‘non-reformist reform’, and drawing on data from a participatory workshop in Damascus, this paper explores priorities for HE reform in post-Assad Syria. We examine participants’ concerns around the disconnection between HE and the labour market, declining educational quality, and the need for administrative reform. We offer preliminary reflections on the significance of the workshop data as it relates to both the possibilities and limitations of HE reform at present. Borrowing from Akbar’s (2023) description of progressive social movements as activating the relationships between ‘criticism’, ‘praxis’ and ‘horizon’, we repurpose this tripartite as an analytic and reflexive tool that helps us to understand participants’ views and desires for change within a broader project of collective repair. To this end, we also reflect on the practices and conditions needed to realise more just higher educational futures. While the data offers urgent insights, we recognise the constraints imposed by the geographic and political context of the workshop, and contrast this with Kurdish and opposition experiments in HE that have more clearly rehearsed alternatives. In doing so, we argue that HE reform must be embedded within a wider political and economic paradigm grounded in equity, justice and participation.