Australia announces $20 million for Syrian refugee children

The foreign minister Julie Bishop has announced $20 million to help Syrian refugee children who have fled to Lebanon and Jordan.

Syrian refugee children. (File: AAP)

The funding will be provided to the United Nations initiative ‘No Lost Generation’ by improving the education of children displaced due to the conflict.

Ms Bishop says that half of the 2.7 million Syrian refugees are children, with 70 per cent of children unable to attend school.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and Save the Children Australia will receive the funds.

Ms Bishop says the funds will "help relieve the burden on neighbouring communities sheltering Syrian refugees in this time of crisis".

Australia has already provided over $130 million dollars in humanitarian aid to help those affected by the Syrian crisis since the conflict began in 2011

Sydney Catholic Schools Executive Doctor Dan White says Australia's domestic response to refugees has been poor, but he praises countries like Jordan for their effective refugee programs.

"The people of Jordan - quite a poor country by world standards have opened their borders and they are accomodating, with the help of the United Nations of course, they've allowed over half a million Syrian refugees to be in their country," he told SBS, "and they're doing their very best to provide good education and medical facilities."

The UN says the number of children impacted by Syria's war has doubled in the past year to 5.5 million, many of them trapped in besieged areas and beyond reach.

In a report released last month, the UN children's agency UNICEF warned that the situation was likely to get worse.

"The future of 5.5 million children inside Syria and living as refugees in neighbouring countries hangs in the balance as violence, the collapse of health and education services, severe psychological distress and the worsening economic impact on families combine to devastate a generation", said the report "Under Siege - the devastating impact on children of three years of conflict in Syria".

UNICEF estimates that one in 10 refugee child is now working and one in every five registered marriages of Syrian females in Jordan is a child under the age 18.