Collateral damage: 84% of Iraq's universities destroyed in the war

by Plutonium Page

Where the hell is all of that Iraq reconstruction money going? It's definitely not going to repairing Iraq's infrastructure. And without electricity, running water, and basic security, there's no way you can (literally) rebuild Iraq's universities.

The director of the United Nations University International Leadership Institute has published a report (.doc file) detailing the situation. The press release gives an overview:

Since the start of the war of 2003 some 84% of Iraq's higher education institutions have been burnt, looted or destroyed while four dozen academics have been assassinated and many more brave daily threats, according to an analysis of the system's reconstruction needs released today by the United Nations University.

In addition to destruction of infrastructure (just 40% of which is now under reconstruction) and ongoing security dangers, problems plaguing Iraq's higher learning system include:

• Unreliable safe water and electricity supplies;

• Emigration of Iraq's best-trained educators to other countries (an estimated 30-40% have fled since 1990);

• Long-isolated and under-qualified teaching staff (33% hold only bachelors degrees, despite rules requiring a masters degree; 39% hold masters degrees, 28% hold PhDs);

• Poorly equipped libraries and labs (2,000 labs need to be equipped; 30,000 computers are needed nationwide);

• A fast-growing student population due to the high birthrate and a policy to admit any successful secondary school graduate.

There's more below the fold.

Dr. Reddy points out that "reconstruction" isn't really possible unless there is a way for people to get an education:

"The devastation of the Iraqi system of higher education has been overlooked amid other cataclysmic war results but represents an important consequence of the conflicts, economic sanctions and ongoing turmoil in Iraq," says the paper's author Dr. Jairam Reddy, Director of the UNU International Leadership Institute in Amman, Jordan. "Repairing Iraq's higher education system is in many ways a prerequisite to the long term repair of the country as a whole."

Here's what needs to happen, according to Dr. Reddy:

His proposal for a National Commission on Higher Education in Iraq would be modeled on previous commissions in several countries, including post-apartheid South Africa, to help undertake a full review and transformation of the nation's higher education system. It would comprise officials, academics, students and, given the country's recent isolation, carefully selected international academics, to define:

• The values to underpin a newly restored higher education system – such as, potentially, equity, democracy, human rights, autonomy and academic freedom;

• Mediation and regulation of State – University relations;

• An affordable, realistic participation rate for the higher education system, and the number of universities needed to ensure quality, efficiency and effectiveness;

• Funding issues, including the percentage of Gross National Product that should be devoted to higher education, the proportion of costs to be covered by student fees, and support for students unable to pay;

• How to ensure and enhance the quality of universities – potentially through a national quality assurance body;

• Whether and how to regulate the nascent private higher education system and assure its quality;

• The role of open / distance education and e-learning;

• How to rejuvenate and fund research to contribute to the pressing challenges of post-conflict reconstruction.

(Emphasis mine)

Obviously, these are lofty (and well-meaning) ambitions, but when will it happen? Given these data on reconstruction funds, there's a very long way to go.

Comments

[DHinMI]

Why would the Bushies want Iraqis to go to universities? Isn't that were communist professors indoctinate impressionable 19 year olds into becoming Democrats?

[Plutonium Page]

DHinMI- yeah, that's right. Here's my tinfoil hat theory:

Bush is screwing over education in the U.S. because he doesn't want people to 1. learn how to think for themselves and 2. get edumacationed.

Same goes for Iraq. Education is power (enlightenment). If you take that away from people, they don't have anything.

[Hprof]

...four dozen academics have been assassinated and many more brave daily threats...

I'm tempted to make a joke about David Horowitz, but this is just too f@cking depressing.

[Meteor Blades]

Yikes. Depressing is right. It would be interesting to know exactly who these academics are and why specifically they were targeted.

Two years from Mission Accomplished and another $84 billion is being sent down the pipeline for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, only a pittance of it earmarked for reconstruction, and most of the reconstruction money already earmarked not yet spent. But the insurgents, we were told again today for the umptyumpth time, are "desperate."

[muledriver]

Repeat after me. This was about control of the Middle East, i.e.control of the source of oil.

Iraqis don't need to read, write or think to sit on top of oil or to provide us air force bases. In fact, an educated populace might work against our interests.

Now for the msm answer: we can't rebuild s--t because we can't leave the green zone. The Iraqi government has to meet, effectively, in a foreign embassy. There is a civil war going on. Everything being rebuilt is subject to being blown up. Let freedom ring.

[spartan 68]

Yawn...Iraq is so...2003. Ain't it enough that we freed them from Sadamn?

Nice job Page, keep up the good work. The more it stays out there, the more we can push it into the public eye.

[spartan 68]

Hey, sorry 'bout that...my (snark) with arrows got lost!

[Majhul]

Rising youth literacy in Iraq 1980 - 1990

Early in his rule, Saddam was credited with creating one of the strongest school systems in the Middle East. Iraq won a UNESCO prize for eradicating illiteracy in 1982. Literacy rates for women were among the highest of all Islamic nations, and unlike most Middle East school systems, Iraqi education was largely secular.

By the end of the 1980s, shortly before the U.S. aggression against Iraq began, 87% of the Iraqi public was literate. In other words, about twice as many people could read and write than could 15 years earlier.

The embargo was disastrous on the Iraqi educational system. For instance, even pencils were not allowed to be imported. The U.S. placed these in the "dual-use" category of imports. Since there are few trees for wood in Iraq, pencils became rare. Anti-embargo human rights groups brought pencils to Iraq during the sanctions, but it was only a drop in the bucket for the actual needs.

Despite the hardships, Iraqis were still learning to read and write. At the height of the embargo in 1995, 89.7% of Iraqi males were literate and 45% of the female population could read and write. The sanctions took their highest toll on Iraqi women.

Even in March 2003, most figures from international organizations stated that Iraq still had a literacy rate of over 60%. Two years later, and the rate is under 40%. To make it simple, about two of every three Iraqis today can not read or write.

This decrease in literacy fits U.S. imperialistic aims. If the people can not read or write, they can not understand all the diabolical effects of the occupation. To them, they worry about eating and having electricity. Reading is secondary. With an enslaved population like this, there is little hope that a "normal" life will return to Iraqis for decades.

Most educators in Iraq today fight to have text books or pencils. If they get table scraps, they are happy because that is better than nothing. However, table scraps will be the only offerings coming for a long time.

The U.S. is currently building 14 permanent bases in Iraq. U.S. firms have bilked the Iraqis out of untold billions of dollars. Every day that passes is another day when the illiteracy rate in Iraq rises. The public has no time to worry about literacy. This enslavement is powerful and lasting....