BEIRUT, Oct. 24 (Xinhua) -- Australia granted the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) 30 million Australian dollars (about 23 million U.S. dollars) to support education of Lebanese children, a UNICEF statement said on Tuesday.
The statement said the announcement was made during Australian Governor-General Peter Cosgrove's visit to a Lebanese public school accompanied by Lebanese Education Minister Marwan Hamadeh and UNICEF's representative in Lebanon Tanya Chapuisat.
More than 1 million Syrian refugees have fled war to neighboring Lebanon, straining local resources.
Among them, tens of thousands of Syrian children now attend Lebanese public schools.
Cosgrove lauded the Lebanese government's efforts in hosting Syrian refugees and said at the school that "what we see here today is the best proof of this support."
Chapuisat said "it's only through education that societies can end intergenerational cycles of poverty and discrimination."
