ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Nearly 20,000 employees of Iraq’s electricity ministry are illiterate and have been enrolled in a government program to teach them reading and writing, an education ministry official said on Saturday, attributing the high number largely to the hiring of contract workers in recent years.
"We have launched a joint program with the Iraqi Ministry of Electricity to teach 19,939 employees in Baghdad and other provinces," Haitham Munther, director of media and communications at the Executive Agency for Literacy Eradication at the Iraqi education ministry, told Rudaw’s Gashaw Khalid.
Munther said the education ministry is providing specialized teaching staff and supplies for literacy centers established at electricity ministry offices across the country.
He attributed the large number of illiterate employees primarily to the widespread recruitment of contract workers in recent years.
"In principle, it should be impossible for an employee to be illiterate. However, as you know, the issue of contract workers arose in recent years. Previously, the number of Ministry of Electricity staff was stable between 90,000 and 95,000, but in the past years, more than 100,000 people have been added solely through contracts," Munther said.
Most of the employees were hired under the job title of "manual laborer," according to Munther, who said many are laborers or tradespeople who took the jobs to supplement their income or support their families.
"These are young people who, because of war and the difficult conditions raised by those wars the country has faced, were not given the opportunity to be educated in school and to learn reading and writing. Therefore, a number of them - nearly 20,000 - are illiterate.”
Under the program, the employees will be divided into two groups. Some will attend existing literacy centers, while others will study at new centers established in electricity ministry buildings and affiliated companies.
The initiative is the latest in a wider government campaign to eradicate illiteracy among public sector employees.
In July, around 11,000 lower-ranking personnel affiliated with Iraq's interior ministry were enrolled in a mandatory literacy program in coordination with the education ministry.
Iraq's 2024 national census put the country's illiteracy rate at 15.3 percent. While senior civil service positions generally require university or technical qualifications, illiteracy among government employees is concentrated largely among lower-ranking personnel, including members of security forces, local police, municipal services and facility protection forces.
Iraq once ran one of the region's most ambitious literacy campaigns, establishing thousands of learning centers in schools, workplaces, military facilities and villages. The campaign significantly reduced illiteracy, but decades of war, international sanctions and economic turmoil undermined much of that progress.
