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It’s Time for University Reform in Iraqi
Kurdistan
9.6.2011
By Michael Rubin
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June
9, 2011
It has been a decade since I ended my first sojourn
in Iraqi Kurdistan. In between a post-doctorate
fellowship in Washington, DC, and the start of my
broader career, I went to teach English and history
classes at the three universities which then existed
in Iraqi Kurdistan. The universities were dynamic
places.
Students clearly were excited to learn, and to seize
opportunities which--with Saddam's tanks just
several dozen kilometers away (and even closer in
Duhok)--they did not take for granted. At the same
time, too many university administrators were still
operating on an East Bloc model or treating the
universities as their own private fiefs.
The aftermath of the 1994-1997 Kurdish civil war was
ever-present. At the suggestion of Barham Salih who
at the time was the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK)
representative in Washington, I split my time evenly
between territory controlled by the PUK and that of
the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), so that
neither side would accuse me of favoring the other.
Because my residence in Sulaymani was slightly
longer than my time in Duhok, I would travel
regularly to Erbil from Sulaimaniyah to teach at
Salahuddin University.
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Michael Rubin |
At both Sulaimaniyah and
Salahuddin Universities, several of my students were
refugees from the opposite city expelled because
they or their families belonged to the wrong
political party; they were unable to take the
two-hour shared taxi ride upon which I would depend.
Myriad checkpoints ensured that Kurds did not travel
freely within Iraqi Kurdistan. When trying to depart
KDP territory, it was not uncommon for police to
take me from the taxi and demand that I go first to
the intelligence bureau to confirm permission to
travel.
The civil war and the resultant political
Balkanization of Kurdistan impacted university
development. Sulaimaniyah University became the
showcase for PUK-controlled areas,www.ekurd.netand
Salahuddin became the main university for the KDP.
When Asmat Khalid opened a university in Duhok, it
was matched by a university in Koya. Others have
since followed. Both sides sought to claim equality
in high education. While politicians could brag
about the proliferation of universities, they
neglected an important reality: Too many
universities are not a good for Iraqi Kurdistan.
If Iraqi Kurdistan will truly thrive, it is
important that Kurds can not only travel between its
cities as many more now do, but that they also
establish lifelong friendships with classmates from
other towns and from every corner of the region. If
students from Duhok matriculate at Duhok University,
but never spend any significant time at Sulaimaniyah
aside from a conference here or a field trip there,
they are doing themselves and Iraqi Kurdistan a
disservice.
There is an inverse proportion between the number of
universities and their quality of education. Every
university, whether in Kurdistan or in the United
States or anywhere else has some professors who are
truly wonderful educators and experts in their
field, and others who care more about prestige than
they do about their students. The proliferation of
universities dilutes the concentration of great
faculty and the quality of colleges within the
university.
Rather than have a handful of teaching colleges, law
schools, English and Arabic departments, veterinary
schools, and agriculture colleges, it might be time
to consolidate: Unify the universities into a single
university, merge the colleges and departments, and
transform the existing public universities into
campuses of a single entity. The single English
department might be located in one city; agriculture
in another, medicine in a third, and computer
science in a fourth. Every town and city which now
has a university would retain the benefits of the
institution, and the employment it provides. Pooling
together the best faculty in any particular field
would save money by stopping the unnecessary
proliferation of administration, bureaucracy, and
the unwarranted duplication of laboratories and
library collections. The faculties would have
greater intellectual depth, the library collections
larger, and Kurdish students could begin to compete
with those outside Iraq and the broader Middle East.
The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) remains
large and bloated. Too often, government offices
exist not to serve the people, but to give political
allies jobs and patronage. There are more ministries
in Kurdistan than in the United States, and the
ministers in Kurdistan receive higher salaries than
their American or European counterparts. More than
seven years after Saddam's fall, it is time that the
KRG began to focus on quality rather than quantity.
Higher education would be a good place to start.
Unlike most areas of the political realm, all Kurds
might benefit, and the dividends to the entire
region both socially and economically could be
immense.
Michael Rubin
is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise
Institute AEI. His major research area is the Middle
East, with special focus on Iran, Iraq, Turkey, and
Kurdish society. He also writes frequently on
transformative diplomacy and governance issues. At
AEI, Mr. Rubin chaired the "Dissent and Reform in
the Arab World" conference series. He was the lead
drafter of the Bipartisan Policy Center's 2008
report on Iran. In addition to his work at AEI,
several times each month, Mr. Rubin travels to
military bases across the United States and Europe
to instruct senior U.S. Army and Marine officers
deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan on issues relating
to regional state history and politics, Shiism, the
theological basis of extremism, and strategy.
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