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Teaching
at Kurdish universities has its problems, but for
many Arabs it is a better option than staying at
home.
A growing number of Arab lecturers are taking jobs
at universities in Iraqi Kurdistan, an opportunity
that was largely unavailable to them under former
president Saddam Hussein.
Iraqi Kurdistan, which consists of three northern
provinces, fell out of Saddam Hussein’s control
after the 1991 Gulf War. The Kurdish region became
autonomous and it was difficult for Arabs from the
rest of Iraq to go there and work without drawing
unwanted attention from Saddam’s intelligence
agents.
Lecturers of Arab ethnicity are now flocking to the
Kurdish region to take advantage of its relative
security and the high demand for qualified
academics. Officials at Sulaimaniyah university say
they actively recruit Arabs because they are short
of qualified and experienced lecturers.
In the south and middle of Iraq, lecturers face
tough competition for a limited number of jobs.
“When I got my master’s degree, I thought of
teaching in Kurdistan because I had fewer chances of
finding employment in Baghdad,” said Mohammad
Thinoon, a sociology lecturer at Sulaimaniyah
university.
But Arabs say they sometimes have problems teaching
Kurdish students because of the language barrier.
Most of the lecturers use Arabic as their teaching
medium, creating a problem for students who went in
Kurdish-language schools and have a poor grasp of
Arabic.
"Once I wanted to make the lecturer understand me
using the little Arabic I know, but my classmates
laughed so the lecturer asked me to get out," said
Hemin Tahir, a student of Kurdish.
Hasan Abdullah, studying sociology at Sulaimaniyah
university, said he was astonished the first time a
lecturer gave out Arabic-language handouts and told
the class, "you can answer in Arabic in the exams".
Abdullah said he was forced to answer the exam
questions partly in Arabic and partly in Kurdish.
"Does he give the exams to other people to grade or
maybe his children score them?" he joked.
Lecturer Waid Ibrahim says he can understand the
Kurdish students’ frustrations, since as a native
Arabic speaker himself, he studied Kurdish for three
months before coming to Sulaimaniyah, but still
cannot write the language.
Ibrahim said the university has found a way around
the language problem when it comes to grading exams.
"We have formed a committee consisting of Arab and
Kurdish lecturers,” he said. “The Kurdish lecturers
translate the answers into Arabic and we grade
them."
Statistics lecturer Zakariya Yahya said any
intelligent academic can find ways of solving the
language problem.
But Yahya cautioned that the problem of
discrimination against Arabs is more difficult to
deal with. "That’s the influence of the Baath media,
which made out that Arabs are the main enemy of the
Kurds,” he said.
The Kurdish minority was oppressed for decades by
the Baath regime, and the experience sowed deep
divisions between Iraq’s Kurds and Arabs.
But university officials welcome the fresh expertise
the newcomers bring. And despite the hurdles, many
Arab lecturers have no plans to leave even if things
get better in the rest of Iraq.
"Even if universities in central or southern Iraq
wanted lecturers, I wouldn't go back," said Yahya.
Wirya Hama Tahir is an IWPR trainee in Sulaimaniyah.
www.iwpr.net
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