Education
Iraq: Back To School,
Back To Horror
By Ali al-Fadhily
15 September, 2007
Inter Press Service
BAGHDAD, Sep 14,
2007 (IPS) - As another school year begins in Iraq, parents
approach it with dread, fearing for the safety of their children.
With the security situation
grimmer than ever all over the country, just stepping out of one's house
means a serious threat to life.
"God knows how we could
send our kids to school this year," Um Mohammed, a mother of five
in Baghdad told IPS. "Our financial situation is the worst ever
and the prices are way too expensive for the majority of Iraqis to afford.
I might have to keep some of them at home and send only two."
The 40-year-old woman shed
tears when she started to talk about the family?s financial now compared
to what it was before the U.S. occupation of Iraq.
"My God, don't those
Americans have any conscience? We were not rich before, but life was
easy and we used to celebrate the school season, watching our kids trying
their uniform on and looking at the colourful pictures of their new
books," she said.
Iraqis blame their government's
failure to provide them with basic necessities on the U.S.-led occupation
that has brought such an incompetent regime to power.
The Iraqi Ministry of Education
promised Iraqis a better educational year in 2007, a promise that has
been made every year for the past four years.
"The educational system
in Iraq is destroyed and we are suffering all kinds of difficulties,"
said Hassan, a school headmaster in Baghdad who spoke on condition that
his last name and the name of his school would not be used. "There
will be a shortage of desks, blackboards, water, electricity and all
educational supplies ? as well as a critical shortage in the number
of teachers this year."
Teachers, like other Iraqis,
have fled the country because of threats from sectarian death squads.
Some were evicted from their areas and moved to others inside Iraq for
sectarian reasons.
According to Iraq's Ministry
of Higher Education, as of February 2006, nearly 180 professors were
killed and at least 3,250 have fled Iraq to the neighbouring countries.
The situation has deteriorated severely since then.
"The number of teachers
leaving the country this year (2006) is huge and almost double those
who left in 2005," Professor Salah Aliwi, director-general of studies
planning in the Ministry of Higher Education told reporters during an
Aug. 24, 2006 interview in Baghdad. "Every day, we are losing more
experienced people, which is causing a serious problem in the education
system."
While teachers are at risk,
Iraqi families are concerned for the safety of their children as well.
"I am not sending my
two boys to school this year," Tariq Ahmed from Baghdad told IPS.
"I am sure hundreds, if not thousands, of students will be abducted
and killed by militias. I am not gambling with my boys? life just to
support Bush?s lies that the country is safe and sound."
Last month, the Iraqi Ministry
of Education warned of possible low attendance of pupils at schools
this year, saying it expects at least a 15 percent decrease in attendance
compared to previous years.
Leila Abdallah, a senior
official at the Ministry of Education, told reporters on Aug. 28 there
has been a 54 percent increase in exam failure rates compared to previous
years.
She added that many students
had not completed their last exams as they had been forced by violence
to flee their homes to safer areas.
The Iraqi NGO Keeping Children
Alive (KCA), recently said education standards in Iraq had dropped and
many schools were relying on teachers teaching at least 100 students
per class.
"Owing to lack of teachers,
a class now has dozens of students, a situation that is preventing teachers
from giving sufficient attention to individual pupils," Moussa
Dureid, a spokesperson for the KCA, said.
According to an Oxfam International
report released in July, "92 percent of children had learning impediments
that are largely attributable to the current climate of fear."
The report added, "Schools
are regularly closed as teachers and pupils are too fearful to attend.
Over 800,000 children may now be out of school, according to a recent
estimate by Save the Children UK -- up from 600,000 in 2004."
Iraqis do not feel secure
despite the reassurances of U.S. and Iraqi authorities that the security
situation has improved.
"Universities are death
squad headquarters," Qutayba Assaad, a professor at Al-Mustansiriya
University in Baghdad told IPS. "They are practicing all kinds
of torture inside the university and they abducted many of my colleagues
because of their sect or their objections to what the clerics are doing
inside universities."
"What education are
you talking about," Kussay Kathum, a student at Baghdad University
told IPS. "This country is dead and its body is being torn apart.
They should stop schools and colleges attendance until they solve the
core of the problem."
His colleague, Sumaya agreed
with him.
"Indeed they should
change the whole system in Iraq before sending us to school. It is suicide
to go to colleges where the government's militias kill people. It seems
that our American colleagues do not care for what is happening to us."
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