According to the latest reports shared by the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), it looks like the education system in Iraq is in complete turmoil. The country has been under the influence of conflicts and war for far too long now. There are almost 3 million children in the country that are in desperate need of education. A report also suggests that almost 250,000 students haven’t received any kind of education in the last 12 months.
The education system in Iraq is constantly declining. With the heavy scarcity of teachers and funds, it is very difficult to provide basic education to millions. Iraq requested almost $35 million from the UN for meeting the education requirement, but the request hasn’t been fully approved.
According to a coordinator working for NRC Iraq,
Iraq’s economy has been on a downfall for so long. Education is the only way to effectively tackle the problem. More efforts should be made to train and educate the young generation of the country so that they can find work for themselves.
War killed the education system in Iraq
Ever since the war started between the armed groups within the country, there were no new teachers employed. Rather the pre-existing teachers had to leave their jobs creating a deficiency of more than 32% of teachers within the past five years. Nineveh is one of the most populated areas in Iraq, which once had more than 40,000 teachers. Now there are just 25000 of them. The education system in Iraq faced the brunt of the war.
This has resulted in a massive number of students dropping out of their schools. Also, the students still continuing at the school can’t even interact with the teachers. The schools now run in mostly two or three different shifts throughout the day and a single batch includes 600-650 students each.
Students have complained about this issue but there has been no help. To fill up for the teachers, volunteers have started teaching at the schools in Iraq. These volunteers account for more than 50% of the total teachers in the country.
Although these volunteers are paid for their work by UNICEF and other agencies, the reality is quite different. Often these workers are not paid or underpaid in several cases, especially for volunteers working in the IDP (Internally Displaced People) Camps.
The conditions of these camps are shabby and awful, to say the least. In a primary school in IDP, there are just two teachers for more than 1700 students. Instead of helping and appreciating the efforts, the government has issued a circular stating that they would no longer pay for the rented buildings that are used for schooling. So far, there has been no initiative by the government to help the education system in Iraq.
