When it comes to education in Iraq, I always stand up to defend it. It is because of what I have studied in Iraq, I’m here America. It isn’t an ephemeral thing. It is the basis, the milestone, and the right road that I dogged.
When I first started working as a graduate assistant at the university where I am pursuing my Master’s degree in Writing Studies here in Philadelphia in fall 2006, I encountered a kind of American stereotypical incident. Answering some questions that my boss was asking, I was shocked when she asked me how I made it to come and study in the US when “education in Iraq wasn’t good.” The question left me in absolute shock. I didn’t see that coming from an educator! I told her the story of my education and how I, a young man who went through three wars and twelve-year sanctions, made it well to reach this level.
Although it had its flaws, education in Iraq wasn’t terrible. On the contrary, it was sturdy. Starting from elementary school and ending with college, I had received a well-built education with the help of my parents and the people surrounding me.
Since I was born in 1980, I lived almost my entire life under Saddam’s tyranny and abuse which reached educators before anyone else. However, most of my teachers whose salary didn’t exceed 3000 ID [$1.5] per month, thanks to the sanctions, did not give up. On the contrary, they gave us their utmost efforts to keep up the education distinguished than anything else. Education was free in Iraq, and that was a huge thing compared to education in many other countries where parents strive to save some money for their kids to go to school. Teachers were friendly and firm. And curricula were good to prepare students for their college lives.
The sanctions period wasn’t easy at all. The families’ income deteriorated like a snowball falling from the top of a mountain. The monthly salaries were hardly enough for one day food. But people remained persistent to continue their education by working and studying at the same time. Yes, there was no internet, but there were public and school libraries that were helpful in one way or another. Text books were distributed for free to students, and the entire education in the state schools was free.
I consider myself lucky that I could work, study, and get as much benefit as I could from my High School and college teachers in a time where safety wasn't hard to find if we knew how to pursue it, but the struggle and the tower of education which we protected for years is collapsing. The new generation is facing a grave danger of losing the most precious weapon of life, education.
Going through the daily fear of being kidnapped or killed, Iraq’s students and educators are going through a prosecution and humiliation committed by the fusty crimes of the militias and insurgents and the fiasco that marked every action the government does.
After the multiple explosions against university students, the beheadings and executions of teachers in Anbar and the triangle of death, Azzaman newspaper reported a heart-wrenching article of how this year’s central exams have been marred by the theft of exam questions papers. The paper added that some militiamen are reported to have barged into exam halls and forced teachers to dictate the answers to certain students whom they wish to tempt to be loyal to them after they finish their exams.
The ghost of terror and minute-by-minute fear became ubiquitous. It became part of Iraqi students’ lives and minds whenever they open a book to study or go to school. The enemies of education have increased. We had one enemy yesterday, and today we have hundreds of thousands of enemies who want to destroy the seeds of a bright future that we are seeing dying in front of us everyday. The question is what should we do to stop this? How could people continue going to schools if schools and exam halls were not protected by the government? Isn’t it official now to consider what the government is doing a fiasco? A complete one?
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