During exam time, terrorists walked into a school in Baghdad, picked a pupil at random and decapitated him. They left his head on display outside the school building. This was one of a succession of similar incidents during the recent insurgency in Iraq: it was not uncommon for teachers to be murdered in front of their classes, or pupils in front of their teachers.
Khureir al-Khuzaie, Iraq’s education minister, acknowledges he has a lot to do. He is working with a population that for several years, has seen little value in education. In February he visited Britain with a delegation aiming to improve Iraqi education. They were attending the Learning and Technology World Forum in London.
“Wherever you go in the Islamic world, you see the fingerprints of Iraqis,” said Dr. al-Khuzaie. “Iraqi universities used to graduate doctors and engineers of international standard. But after Saddam Hussein came to power, he turned Iraq into a camp for military conflict. Young learners had no hope for the future, because of the wars.”
Since Saddam was overthrown, little has changed. No schools have been renovated since 1986. And, in addition to the terrorist threat, teachers have had to contend with sudden influxes of refugees from conflict zones: class sizes regularly swell from 30 to 70 in a single day. “We’ve had to choose between overcrowded classes and students out on the street with no education,” says Dr. al-Khuzaie.
Comments Radgwan Sultan of the British Council in Baghdad: “At some stage, most of the jobs were as policemen or security guards. And you know kids and weapons. But now there’s a ban on plastic toy weapons. And there’s been a 200 percent wage rise for academics. So it makes a difference whether you have a degree or not.”
Sultan and Rasheda Zaher Dracey, of the Kurdistan education ministry, also visited Northern Ireland to observe how it has coped in the aftermath of sectarian violence. They were particularly impressed with the integrated schools which bring together Catholics and Protestants.
Kurdistan, which avoided the worst of the recent violence, has seen large numbers of refugees from other parts of Iraq. New schools have opened specifically for these refugees, with lessons in Arabic instead of Kurdish. “The teachers are Kurdish,” says Ms. Zaher-Dracy. “But they give Arab pupils food, clothing, pocket money. The reconciliation in schools can affect the whole of society. We’re building a country together.”
Dr. al-Khuzaie’s ministry is now revising the curriculum, expunging Saddam and his achievements, pictures and ideas from textbooks. The new books, he hopes will be acceptable to everyone, from the mullahs to Marxists. And English will feature prominently.
“When France came into countries in our region, it dealt culturally with the people and left cultural bridges,” says Dr. al-Khuzaie. “Britain and USA didn’t do that in Iraq. They came in by force and left without building bridges. But the greatest gift of God is forgetting. People forget wars and pain. There’s still an opportunity for England and America to change people’s memories from the smell of gunpowder to the smell of ink.”
(Excerpted and adapted from The Times Education Supplement)