In the 1970s, Iraq had an educational system that was the best in the Middle East. According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the percentage of those enrolled in primary education was nearly 100%. The government almost wiped out illiteracy.
However, education has since declined to the point that Iraq has become one of the countries in the region that suffer from a shortage of schools, after it has been in successive wars and suffocating crises, which reduced the interest in education.
Mujtaba al-Husseini, a former student at Al-Mustapha School in Baghdad, looks at the school with a sigh, as it was demolished and settled on the ground and then turned into a landfill.
Al-Husseini told Al-Jazeera Net that this school did not need to be demolished. Its floors and rows were constructed in a good way, keeping pace with modernity and it was better to modernize it.
He added that the school's land has become a dumping ground for garbage that sends off unpleasant smells after the place was spreading science and knowledge.
Hamed Karim, a former teacher at the school, pointed out that six years had passed since the demolition of the school, which accommodated more than 200 students on a daily basis, morning and evening.
Karim added that the students were later forced to send their children to private schools because there are no nearby government schools where there is room for additional numbers of students.
Other events led to the deterioration of the education sector in Iraq as well. It was a sectarian war that did not end with the arrival of al-Qaeda and its successor the organization of the Islamic state and other armed factions.
| Classes suffer from high student load (Al Jazeera Net) |
Millions of pupils
Today, there are about 10 million students distributed in 16,000 schools in Iraq, a number that can not be solved by the double and tripartite crisis. The number of school buildings is very low. More than 600 students are required to attend a one-day school for 200 students.
In Iraq, nearly three million students have lost access to education after the destruction of their schools during the war on state organization that swept over a third of the country, more than 150 destroyed educational facilities, and half of Iraq's schools are in need of rehabilitation according to UN estimates.
Despite the announcement of the Directorate of Education of the province of Nineveh (northern Iraq) rehabilitation and rehabilitation of about two thousand schools in the province, Director of Information Ministry of Education Sami Farhan indicated in an official statement that the education of Nineveh works through rehabilitation programs for infrastructure to re-enter schools destroyed in Mosul to service to resolve This worsening crisis is offset by a continuing government deficit.
While the Ministry of Education announced the completion of the requirements for the construction of 73 schools throughout the country during the current year, Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi said that the first half of 2019 saw the completion of 35 new school buildings only.
| An archival picture of a classroom in Iraq dating back to the 1980s (Al Jazeera Net) |
No strategy
Many believe that Iraq does not have any clear strategy for the development and advancement of the educational sector in the coming period, as it has not completed more than 400 school buildings only in 15 years, according to government statistics.
Experts say that the slow pace of achievement in this manner led to the decline of the education sector to its lowest levels, as revealed by the Committee on Education of the need for Iraq to seven thousand school buildings to end the crisis in full.
The member of the Committee Riad Mohammed pointed out during an interview for Al Jazeera Net that Iraq can build these schools through international loans and Iraqi banks, and the cost of construction of about five trillion dinars (4.2 billion dollars).
The deficit in these buildings remains part of the problem of the education sector in Iraq, but it does not stop at this point, but rather to the lack of furnishing school curricula that need to be re-operated according to a comprehensive plan, as confirmed by experts and specialists.