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Iraqi Kurdistan Bolstered by Influx of
Arab Academics
20.1.2007
By Zaineb Naji in Baghdad and Firman abdul-Rahman in
Sulaimaniyah (ICR No. 209, 20-Jan-07) |
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Higher education in Baghdad and other troubled
cities dealt a blow as lecturers flee sectarian
violence for the Kurdish north.
January 20, 2007
Ali abdul-Wahab, 50, a Shia, used to teach
engineering at Baghdad Technical University, but
then one day he started to receive threats from
Sunni radicals who control his Sunni- majority
neighborhood of al-Jamia'a.
"I can't live or work here anymore,” said the
lecturer, two of whose colleagues have been killed
by extremists. He decided to leave the capital for
Sulaimaniyah in Iraqi Kurdistan autonomous region,
where he now teaches at the city’s university
Academic life in Baghdad and other strife-torn
cities has almost come to a halt because many
academic staff have either gone abroad or moved to
safer provinces - some 200 lecturers and assistant
lecturers have left the capital for the
relatively-stable Kurdish north.
Insurgents seem to have declared war on the
country’s educational elite - 280 lecturers and
other academics have been killed since Saddam was
ousted in April 2003.
There were more casualties this week, when
insurgents attacked Mustansiriyah University,
killing at least 70 students and staff members and
wounding 138, in the deadliest violence in the
country so far this year.
Last October, militants declared that lecturers and
students would be targeted unless they stayed away
from their colleges. For some weeks, the number of
students dropped dramatically. Slowly, though, they
started to come back, however the attacks and
threats did not stop.
In November, the dean of the College of Economics
was assassinated. And then a few days later, a
number of higher education ministry employees were
abducted in broad daylight by gunmen masquerading as
ministry of interior forces.
Universities remain open but are more or less
deserted. For although campuses are guarded by
police and army, staff and students still feel like
easy prey for militants once they leave the
premises.
Abdul-Wahab rented a house for his family in
Sulaimaniyah and says he settled down well, "I feel
comfortable working here.
Colleagues trust me fully, and relations between
Arab and Kurdish lecturers are wonderful.”
Some faculties in Baghdad are on the edge of closing
down because almost all the lecturers have left. At
the College of Pharmacology, staff numbers have
fallen from 12 to two, with missing personnel
replaced by recently graduated teachers.
Salahaddin University in Erbil was for many years
the only university in the northern part of the
country. After the Kurdish uprising in March 1991,
when the northern provinces of Sulaimaniya, Erbil
and Dohuk acquired semi-autonomous status, two new
universities were opened in Sulaimaniyah and Dohuk.
The new Kurdish universities mainly depended on
local and expat Kurdish academics because they had
no connection with universities in the rest of Iraq.
After 2003, the relocation of Arab lecturers
reinvigorated academic life there, prompting the
Kurdish education authorities to expand several
colleges to meet growing local demand for higher
education.
"If those [Arab] lecturers hadn’t come, teaching at
Sulaimaniyah University would have been
problematic," said Aras Dartash, dean of the College
of Economy and Administration. At this college
alone, there are 11 lecturers and assistant
lecturers from central and southern Iraq.
He said they were a great help, especially in
supervising masters and doctoral students.
The Kurdistan Regional Government seeks to encourage
Arab lecturers to relocate by offering them
financial incentives. Individuals are handed bonuses
of 300,000 Iraqi dinars (200 US dollars) while those
who bring their families receive an additional
500,000 dinars as a housing subsidy.
But there is a downside to the trend, and not only
the obvious one that higher education in other parts
of the country suffers.
Many young Kurdish university students have a poor
grasp of Arabic because during the period of
autonomous rule in the Nineties many studied only in
Kurdish.
Aryan Qadir, a student at the College of Economy and
Administration, failed a course in a topic that an
Arab lecturer taught. "We know these lecturers are
experienced but we don't understand them because
they teach in Arabic," he said.
Dartash defends the employment of Arab lecturers,
insisting that only some undergraduates are affected
by language difficulties and translators will soon
be employed to assist them. Other colleges overcome
this problem by teaching in English.
However, it’s not only language that’s a source of
trouble. "Some Arab lecturers bring up political and
sectarian issues that hurt the feelings of Kurdish
students," complained Sarkawt Khidhir, a dentistry
student. He recalls a dispute about the Saddam trial
with one lecturer who called the case unfair - which
upset the students, many of whom are from families
who fell victim to Saddam’s campaign against the
Kurds.
In general, though, most here agree that the
relocation of Arab lecturers has more pros than cons
for higher education in the Kurdistan region.
Faraydoon Muheddin, deputy dean of the dentistry
faculty at Sulaimaniyah University, where twelve
Arab lecturers teach, values their academic skills
highly. "They have been very useful,” he said,
pointing out that they fill gaps in expertise.
For Baghdad students, the exodus of their lecturers
is a real tragedy. Those who go are usually replaced
by young, inexperienced assistant lecturers - and
right now there aren’t enough senior teaching staff
to supervise masters and doctoral candidates.
Ayad Abdullah, a masters student at Baghdad
University’s science faculty, said he’s been through
three supervisors so far. "My first, the head of the
biology department, was killed, and the second left
for Erbil University," he said. "It is a real major
loss of scientific expertise.”
Zaineb Naji and Firman abdul-Rahman are IWPR
contributors in Iraq & Kurdistan.
iwpr net
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