Education
Under Siege
By Dahr Jamail &
Ali Al-Fadhily
20 November, 2006
Inter Press Service
BAGHDAD, Nov 18 (IPS)
- The recent kidnapping of scores of academics in Baghdad highlights
the desperate situation of the educational system in occupied Iraq.
Armed men wearing Iraqi police
uniforms abducted as many as 150 academics from the Ministry of Higher
Education on Tuesday.
Alaa Makki, the head of the
Parliament's education committee called the action a "national
catastrophe" and the 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 administration manager
of a large university in Baghdad spoke with 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 fears for his life each day he goes 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 behaviour."
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 have 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 U.S.-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 Organisation) 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 percent.
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 organised 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 U.S.-led occupation began, particularly when CPA (Coalition
Provisional Authority) Administrator 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, on top of
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 U.S. war planes during the 2003 invasion. However, the quality of
work by foreign contractors, such as Bechtel Corporation, and their
subcontractors 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 U.S.-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 U.S. 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 a chaotic security situation. Further complicating matters, there
is great fear of abduction for ransom and an even greater of for 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. 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 Iraq's Ministry
of Education released statistics which indicated that only 30 percent
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 organisation Save the Children, was 75
percent attendance.
Attendance rates for the
new school year which started on Sep. 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
U.S.-led invasion in March 2003. The immediate pre-war level of attendance
in 2003 was nearly 100 percent.
At least 270 academics have
been killed during the occupation, according to the Iraq study group
Brussels Tribunal.
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