Education in Kurdistan Suffers Over Oil Row With Baghdad

[Aslan]

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan does not have the money for 500 schools it needs to build, its education minister says, while more than a quarter of the population remains illiterate and nearly 30 percent has only finished primary school.

Asmat Muhamad Khalid says in the most recent edition of the The Review of Kurdistan that building the 500 schools requires $10 billion in extra costs that the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) does not have.

“Our current budget allocation obviously does not cover that amount,” Khalid says in the interview.

The KRG has been hard hit by an oil dispute with Baghdad. While the autonomous Kurds insist they have the right to govern their own natural resources Baghdad claims it is the sole governing body to make oil decisions.

KRG officials say that this year Baghdad cut the Kurdistan Region’s share of the federal budget from the 17 percent outlined in the budget to only 10.4 percent, and blame Baghdad’s anger over the oil row as the reason.

A KRG report of about a year ago said that 26.3 percent of Kurdistan’s five million population – 12 and over – remains illiterate. According to the Ministry of Education it now stands at about 23 percent, and the rate of citizens with no educational certification beyond primary school stands at 29.7 percent for the three-provinces of Kurdistan.

This means on average about one out of every three Kurdish citizens from the age of 12 and over cannot read and does not have an educational certificate.

Because of the hamstrung education system -- and decades of wars and conflict that devastated Iraqi Kurdistan -- many young Kurds are going without schooling, at a time when the self-rule region is experiencing an economic boom and needs an educated and skilled work force.

The planning ministry’s most recent Strategic Plan for education says that “limited capacity of buildings and inability to provide and retain educational opportunities... are a major challenge facing the advancement of education.”

“For 2013, $50 million were allocated by the Kurdistan Regional Government for the education sector, and Erbil got $13 million for education, which is 34 percent,” said Bakr Asan, the general director of education in the Kurdish capital.

He added that more than 140 schools were reconstructed with the money, which would also go to improve education in all of the Kurdistan Region.

Currently, there are 1.6 million students enrolled in public schools, with the enrollment rate increasing by 130,000 students per year.

The Strategic Plan for education calls for emphasis on developing curricula to help Kurdistan’s post-conflict society catch up where it has fallen behind.

“Great focus should be made to develop academic curricula at all levels, to keep these curricula abreast of the scientific developments, and to address the lack of supplies (libraries, laboratories, educational techniques etc.),” the plan says.

Another issue facing the Kurdistan Region is overcrowding in the universities, with some teachers saying classrooms of up to 65 students are hindering learning.

According to the education ministry more than 107,000 students sat for exams to graduate and move on to attend universities, a dramatic increase which the universities are unable to accommodate.

Comments


9 1 Atheist | yesterday at 05:41
Health and education are the two sectors that must be the last to suffer under any economic downturns. In normal, functional democracies during the times of economic upheavals government expenditure are cut. That inevitably means reducing the size of government and the resources allocated to it. The KRG spends 60% of total Kurdistan budget on government expenditure. Obviously that also include health and education. But, by far the vast majority of the budget is spend on government jobs that are not needed. There are many departments and even the ministries that can be amalgamated. Why KRG needs so many departments and employees? Because the KDP/PUK duo guarantee jobs for every member they have. The employees don't need to even show up to work. All they need is to be a party member and vote for them, they get their salaries. Does that sound like a Mafia business? Pretty similar! So, an election slogan that I'd like to hear is: "Let's cut unnecessary government expenditure to save health and education" In other word "say no to nepotism and cronyism! and wasting of public money! To tell the public that there is no money for education because Prime Minister Maliki, Saddam's reincarnation, has cut the budget of Kurdistan is no different than a father telling his baby that he will no longer buy milk for him because he got a demotion! Education and health are number one priorities and they should be the last to suffer from any cuts!
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0 0 critic | 7 hours ago
The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet. Aristotle
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0 0 critic | 7 hours ago
The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet. Aristotle