In June 2018, Jenn Flemming traveled to northern Iraq to conduct an educational needs assessment in four camps for Syrian refugees. The purpose of this consultancy was to assess the educational needs, as well as the capacity of the various camps, to host a non-formal, technical secondary education program for youth. The donor for this project planned to initiate a pilot for the program in the 2018-2019 school year. The assessment was used as part of the process to select the best location for the pilot. 

Four refugee camps in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI), housing Syrian Kurdish refugees displaced from Syria since 2011, were selected for the needs assessment: Darashakran and Kawergosk in the Erbil Governorate and Domiz 1 and Domiz 2 in the Duhok Governorate. These four camp sites have a combined population of 63,221 people or 68% of the total refugee camp population in the KRI, of which 6,510 are between the ages of 12 and 17. Preliminary survey results showed that in all four camps the majority of secondary school-aged children were not attending secondary school. In Kawergosk and Darashakran, for example, more than 3/4s of children between the ages of 12 and 17 were not enrolled in the formal education system.

Once these four camps were selected for the needs assessment, the research team carried out key informant interviews, focus group discussions, site visits, and camp surveys for all locations. In the course of the site visits, 61 individuals participated in focus group discussions, and ten individuals took part in key informant interviews.

Findings from this research allowed the team to make a recommendation for selection of a camp site most appropriate for the pilot program, to be conducted during the 2018-2019 school year.