evidence: ARSAL, Lebanon, May 23 (UNHCR) - It's test day at the Arsal Public Second Shift Middle School and the students in the 8th Grade maths class are engrossed in their exam. They factor numbers, write a series of equations in the form of a single power - all in French, a language they have come to learn only since starting school here in north-east Lebanon two months ago. [...] Arsal was once a sleepy town nestled in the hills a few kilometres from the Syrian border. When war broke out in Syria two years ago, the town bulged as civilians, most of them women and children, fled to Lebanon. Soon Arsal grew by 10,000 people - roughly half were children. [...] "We see the approach that Arsal has taken as a model for the rest of the country," says Linda Kjosaas, a UNHCR education expert in Lebanon. "With an increasing influx, the number of children in school-age at the end of 2013 will exceed the current number of children enrolled in state schools, and in some places even a second shift will not solve the space problem. The impact of the conflict is staggering, but despite what these children have had to endure in the past, they need to be given a real chance to further their education and not become a lost generation."