students with computer and language skills in order to modernize the economy through the education system. Challenges Syria has shown great progress in providing access to basic education and to some extent, post basic education to the growing population. Still Syria has a long way to go to bring about a comprehensive change in the education system. Access to pre-primary level education is low in Syria when compared to other lower-middle income countries. The enrollment at the pre-primary level is 10 percent in Syria whereas it is 15.7 percent in the MENA region in 2007. The Government of Syria has to make substantial investments in infrastructure to improve access to preprimary education. The government needs to prioritize expansion of schools especially in underserved areas with vulnerable populations. According to research findings, children of disadvantaged backgrounds are the ones that benefit the most from early childhood programs by developing basic skills necessary for employment thereby moving them out of abject poverty. Currently, most of the Early Childhood Care and Education services in Syria are delivered through private kindergartens and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) based in urban areas. Despite increasing quantity of human capital through increasing access to education at all levels, the improvement of quality of the education and training system and consequently the quality of human capital is another challenge that Government of Syria needs to address. Weak growth in labor productivity over the past two decades has been associated with low quality and relevance of education in Syria. The results of International test scores TIMSS show that 44 percent of students who appeared in this international exam performed below the lowest international benchmark. Therefore, there is a greater need to improve the quality of overall education system. This also involves the need to incorporate the use of communication and technology to better prepare students to the demands of the globalised world. Currently, Syria’s computer and internet usage is very low compared to a number of neighboring countries and is much lower than the average for lower middle income countries. Syria also faces high repetition and dropout rates. The repetition rate at primary level has been very high, almost 12 percent in 2006 and has been steadily rising since 2003. At the secondary level, repetition rate has reached almost 20 percent. According to the latest data in 2004/05 the average repetition rate was 6 percent for grade 1-6, 13.3 percent for