The ISIL militants have shut all schools in areas they control in eastern Syria, pending a revision of the curriculum, residents say.
The militants are tightening their rules on civilian life in the eastern Syrian province of Dayr al-Zawr, which fell under near-complete control of the militants this summer.
The government still controls a military air base on the outskirts of the provincial capital and other small areas inside the city.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the announcement came Wednesday after the ISIL militants held a meeting with school administrators on the outskirts of Dayr al-Zawr.
“ISIL informed them that teachers shall undergo a religious instructional course for one month, and that ISIL officials were currently developing a new curriculum instead of the current infidel education,” the Britain-based group said in a statement.
The militants have already annulled history, literature and Christianity courses in the Iraqi city of Mosul, situated some 400 kilometers (250 miles) northwest of the capital, Baghdad.
ISIL released an education statement in Mosul that strictly bans any reference to the republics of Iraq or Syria, declares patriotic anthems and lyrics as a show of "polytheism and blasphemy," and orders that pictures which the ISIL deems inappropriate be ripped out of textbooks.
Moreover, the new guidelines emphasize that teachers must be segregated, with men teaching at boys' schools, and women teaching girls.
ISIL controls large swathes of land in Syria and Iraq.
