Iraq's education under
siege By Dahr Jamail and Ali
al-Fadhily
BAGHDAD - The recent kidnapping
of scores of academics in Baghdad highlights the
desperate situation of the education system in
occupied Iraq. Armed men wearing Iraqi police
uniforms abducted as many as 150 academics from
the Ministry of Higher Education.
Alaa
Makki, the head of parliament's education
committee, called the action a "national
catastrophe" and Minister of Higher Education Abed
Dhiab al-Ujaili announced that teaching in all of
Baghdad's universities would be halted "until we
find out what
happened", and because "we
are not ready to lose more professors".
While 70 of the academics have been
released since then, others remain missing.
Academics, along with other professionals,
have been increasingly targeted by sectarian
violence which continues unchecked across much of
Iraq. Thousands of professors and university
researchers have long since fled the war-torn
country.
An administrator of a large
university in Baghdad spoke with Inter Press
Service (IPS) on condition of anonymity: "Iraqi
universities have turned into militia and death
squad headquarters ... Pictures of clerics and
sectarian flags all over are not the only problem,
but there is the interference of clerics and their
followers in everything."
The university
employee, who said he feared for his life each day
he went to work, explained that religious clerics
now had the authority to "sack teachers and
students, forbid certain texts, impose certain
uniforms and even arrest and kill those who belong
to other sects or those who object to their
behavior".
He angrily added, "Our
government seems to approve all that, as no
security office ever intervened to protect
teachers and students or make any change to the
situation."
Iraqi security forces have
been accused of taking part in, or at least
ignoring several mass kidnappings, which are
widely believed to have been carried out by
sectarian groups. The Sunni minority has blamed
many of the kidnappings on armed groups from what
are now the dominant Shi'ite political parties,
who also control the Ministry of Interior.
The Higher Education Ministry is currently
headed by a member of the main Sunni Arab
political bloc.
The 2003 US-led invasion
and occupation of Iraq, with the broken promises
of reconstruction and rehabilitation of Iraq's
educational system, have not been the only cause
of the current disaster.
UNESCO (United
Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization) had reported before the 1991 Gulf
War that Iraq had one of the best educational
performances in the region. Literacy rates were
extremely high and primary school enrollment was
100%.
The number of schools in Iraq under
the Saddam Hussein regime (1979-2003) increased
due to the compulsory learning law enacted in the
1970s. A huge campaign for the eradication of
illiteracy was organized and people had to send
their children to school to avoid legal
repercussions.
The Ba'ath Party had
influence on the kind of subjects studied
concerning religion. In addition, education
administrators and teachers preferred to join the
ruling party, mostly for job security, but they
still had to be scientifically qualified as
teachers.
Being members of the Ba'ath
Party when the US-led occupation began,
particularly when CPA (Coalition Provisional
Authority) Administrator L Paul Bremer instituted
the "de-Ba'athification" plan, caused most
teachers and administrators to be fired, arrested
or later to be assassinated by death squads and
replaced by others who were selected by new ruling
parties, which tended to be Shi'ite religious
fundamentalists.
These factors, in
addition to the harsh economic sanctions and the
current occupation, have left Iraq's education
system in shambles. "The newly employed teachers
are either selected for being members of Islamic
parties in power or those who paid bribes in order
to get the job," a chief education supervisor in
Baghdad told IPS, speaking on condition of
anonymity.
He has managed to keep his job
since he had never joined the Ba'ath Party, and
added that other problems had arisen because,
"Some of them [teachers] are too old to teach and
others brought fraudulent graduation certificates
that we could not deny because they were sent to
us by parties who have militias."
Billions
of dollars were supposedly spent for
rehabilitating schools that were severely bombed
by US planes during the 2003 invasion. However,
the quality of work by foreign contractors, such
as Bechtel Corporation, and their sub-contractors
was so poor that thousands of schools across the
country remain in a state of disrepair.
Most of the money was spent on repainting
and supplying the schools with cheap equipment
that has not stood for long.
"The money
for rebuilding schools just vanished between the
US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council and the
Western contractors and so we still need a lot to
be done," Abdel Aziz, an education manager, told
IPS. "We are doing our best to facilitate the
educational operation, but we are facing a great
deal of problems with the capacity of our schools
and teachers."
Another problem in some
areas is the misuse of school buildings. People in
conflict-ridden areas like Ramadi and parts of
Baghdad have complained that US soldiers use
school buildings as combat posts, especially for
snipers.
Other schools are used by
militias and death squads in areas of Baghdad and
southern provinces of Iraq.
Today,
security is perhaps the major problem facing the
education system. Teachers and students find it
too dangerous to move between their homes and
schools under such chaotic situations. Further
complicating matters, there is great fear of
abduction for ransom and an even greater fear of
assassination by death squads.
And the
poor state of Iraq's economy has exacerbated the
situation. "There is no possible way for me to
cover school expenses," Omar Jassim told IPS. A
father of four from Baghdad, Jassim said, "I am
unemployed and life became too expensive, as well
as the high school bus fare and clothes for the
children. I had to cut them from school and make
them help me provide food for the family."
Many families have decided not to send
their children to school and have instead pushed
them to work as cleaning boys or beggars in the
streets.
Last month, the Ministry of
Education released statistics which indicated that
only 30% of Iraq's 3.5 million students were
attending classes. This is less than half the
number from the previous year, which, according to
the Britain-based non-governmental organization
Save the Children, was 75% attendance.
Attendance rates for the new school year
which started on September 20 were at a record
low, according to the ministry. According to the
Ministry of Education, 2006 has been the worst
year for school attendance since US-led invasion
in March 2003. The immediate pre-war level of
attendance in 2003 was nearly 100%.
At
least 270 academics have been killed during the
occupation, according to the Iraq study group
Brussels Tribunal.
