Syria’s Ministry of Defense has introduced plans for a new college designed to put military training on a extra tutorial and technically specialised basis because the nation works to rebuild its armed forces.
The National University for Defense Sciences was created by presidential decree on July 5, 2026. It will perform as an unbiased public institution with full authorized standing and administrative and monetary autonomy.
At a press convention on Monday, Defense Ministry officers mentioned the college will deliver Syria’s military schools and technical institutes beneath a unified tutorial system. Its packages will mix conventional officer training with engineering, utilized sciences, administration, and strategic studies.
The college will embody the Higher Military Academy, which incorporates the National Defense College, the Higher War College, and the Command and Staff College. It will additionally oversee separate air, naval, and land warfare schools; a Faculty of Humanities and Administrative Sciences; the Higher Institute for Applied Sciences and Technology; and a number of military technical institutes.
President Ahmed al-Sharaa additionally issued a separate decree establishing the Syrian University for Security Sciences, which will deal with tutorial and skilled training for safety personnel.
Major General Murhaf Abu Qasra, Syria’s protection minister, mentioned the new protection college was the product of months of analysis into Arab and regional fashions of military training. The objective, he defined, is to reorganize military training and increase its tutorial scope.
Major General Salim Idris, a member of the ministry’s advisory board, mentioned the college will admit Syrian high-school graduates from each scientific and literary tracks. Admission necessities and minimal grades will be introduced via a proper placement course of coordinated with the Ministry of Higher Education.
Applicants will additionally bear medical examinations tailor-made to the faculty they hope to enter.
Students will obtain a wage throughout their studies, alongside with healthcare, housing, and meals. Graduates of the officer-training schools will earn acknowledged tutorial levels along with their military commissions, whereas non-commissioned officers enrolled in technical institutes will obtain accredited vocational diplomas.
According to Idris, the new mannequin goals to provide officers succesful not solely of working trendy military gear, however of understanding, sustaining, and ultimately growing it.
“Modern warfare relies on science, technology, advanced weapons, and sophisticated systems,” he mentioned, arguing that older military curricula not replicate the calls for positioned on at this time’s armed forces.
Mohammad Wael al-Khaled, head of the Higher Institute for Applied Sciences and Technology, mentioned the air school will prepare aviation engineers, whereas the naval school will supply packages in mechanical, electrical, and ocean engineering.
The land warfare school will embrace packages in pc, communications, industrial, mechanical, and electrical engineering. The Faculty of Humanities and Administrative Sciences will supply levels in protection administration, enterprise administration, worldwide relations, and languages.
The Higher Institute for Applied Sciences and Technology will cowl data know-how, telecommunications, digital techniques, mechatronics, supplies science, and aeronautical engineering. Military technical institutes will prepare assistant engineers and different specialised personnel wanted to function and keep gear.
Students will start with a typical first-year curriculum in arithmetic, physics, chemistry, and languages earlier than shifting into specialised packages of their second yr.
The creation of the college marks a significant restructuring of Syrian military training, which has historically relied on separate academies and standard subject training. Officials say the built-in system is supposed to handle the rising significance of drones, digital warfare, encrypted communications, precision weapons, synthetic intelligence, and networked military techniques.
The inclusion of administrative and humanities packages additionally displays the increasing tasks of officers in areas similar to strategic planning, logistics, worldwide cooperation, useful resource administration, and civil-military relations.
Much will rely, nevertheless, on how the institution implements its acknowledged requirements. Its effectiveness will hinge on the standard of its school, the transparency of admissions, the credibility of its levels, and its means to prioritize skilled competence over political or private loyalty.
The first admissions standards and tutorial schedules have but to be introduced.
This article was translated and edited by The Syrian Observer. The Syrian Observer has not verified the content material of this story. Responsibility for the knowledge and views set out on this article lies fully with the creator.