ZARQA, Jordan — Intissar Ghozlan’s two youngest boys haven’t been in school since the family fled from Syria to Jordan two years ago. There’s no space in local classrooms, and the boys, 12 and 14, can “barely write their names,” having forgotten most of what they learned back home, she says.

More than 90,000 Syrian refugee children in Jordan weren’t able to attend school last year, along with hundreds of thousands in neighboring refugee host countries, prompting warnings of a “lost generation” as a result of Syria’s five-year-old civil war.

That’s now changing, at least in Jordan. Boosted by international funding, the kingdom has promised to make room for all refugee children in its schools by adding more afternoon shifts and hiring thousands of teachers.

For many children, this could be their last chance, said Robert Jenkins, the Jordan representative of UNICEF, the U.N. children’s agency. “At a certain point, it becomes next to impossible for a child to realize its potential, if they have been out of school that long,” he said.

The back-to-school program “not only will have a great impact on individual children, but on the population as a whole and on Jordan as a whole and on the future potential rebuilding of Syria,” he said.

The promise of education for all is part of a broader deal made earlier this year at a conference on Syria aid in London.

Jordan pledged to give refugees access to legal work and education, as a way of keeping them in the region and discouraging them from migrating to Europe. In return, donor countries promised millions of dollars in aid to pay for the refugee burden and boost Jordan’s struggling economy.