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While local Druze armed groups under the ‘National Guard’ rubric retain security control of much of the predominantly Druze province of al-Suwayda’ in southern Syria, the government in Damascus still has leverage over the province because there is no formal international recognition of any purported autonomous structures backed by the National Guard. Thus, if students in al-Suwayda’ wish to attain accredited educational qualifications, they must go through the institutions that are controlled by Damascus.
One recent note of controversy on education has been the question of student exams. The central government recently invited students in al-Suwayda’ to take their exams in areas controlled by the government in the northern and western countryside of the province, where many originally Druze villages have become depopulated and were subject to destruction and looting by government forces during the July massacres in 2025. The National Guard, however, rejects the idea of allowing students to go to those exam centres, asserting that the government could not be trusted to provide safety and security for the students and accusing the government of using the exams issue as a form of pressure against the people of al-Suwayda’.
Amid the ongoing difficult living situation in the Druze areas of al-Suwayda’, reports that the National Guard prevented students from going to take their exams in government-controlled areas were not without controversy, although the National Guard itself portrayed the matter as widespread popular rejection of the government’s tactics and denied being the obstacle to the students’ movement. There has also been some wider controversy about recently broadcasted remarks of Suwayda’ Druze spiritual leader Hikmat al-Hijri (who endorses the National Guard project) portraying the Druze as an ‘indivisible’ part of Israel and sharing ‘creed’ with Israel.
To discuss some of these issues, below is a recent interview conducted on 29 August with a resident of Suwayda’.
According to a report today from the pro-Damascus ‘Suwayda 24’ outlet (which used to be fiercely critical of the government but has since been taken over by someone on the original admin team who is pro-government), ten students managed to go from National Guard-controlled areas to government-held areas to take their examinations.