ANKARA, June 8 (Xinhua) -- Turkish government, the European Union and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) have started a program aiming to finance refugee children to get school education on Thursday in Turkish capital Ankara.
Through the EU-fund program, families could receive conditional cash payments in return for sending and keeping their children in school, according to Daily Sabah.
As many as 56,000 refugee children have been registered in the program since it was announced in Brussels in March. Authorities hope the number reach 230,000 by the end of the year.
Turkey currently hosts over one million school-aged refugee children, of which nearly 500,000 are enrolled schools and temporary education centers run by the Ministry of Education, Turkish Family and Social Policies Minister Betul Sayan Kaya said that at the ceremony.
She noted that, however, less than one-third of the three billion euros promised by the EU-Turkey migrant deal had been transferred to Turkey.
Turkey, a country hosting nearly 3 million refugees from its southern neighbor Syria, has tried to provide school education for refugee children by governmental authorities and international organizations.