ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Officials in Kirkuk have voiced concerns over the negligence of Kurdish education in the province, citing inadequate government support and challenges which leave Kurdish students at a disadvantage compared to their peers in the diverse city.
Hiwa Hassan, a member of the Kurdish education administration in Kirkuk, told Rudaw’s Ranj Sangawi in a program on Sunday that while the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) had invested in Kurdish education in the city after 2003, the current situation is less favorable.
“It is not very good,” he remarked, adding that there are many Kurdish children across neighborhoods and streets who are now enrolled in Arabic education.
“People have lost trust in Kurdish education,” Hassan added.
There are about 100,000 students enrolled in Kurdish schools and about 10 percent of those are not enrolled in the Kurdish curriculum, according to Kamaran Ali, the head of Kurdish education in Kirkuk.
540 students from the Arabic education system have joined Kurdish this year, according to Ali.
Nawzad Mohammed, deputy head of Kurdish education in Iraq’s education ministry, noted that only a limited number of lecturers use Kurdish.
“When they finish Grade 12, they face a big problem because education in this city is Arabic in universities, the dominant language is Arabic,” he added.
In Arabic schools, the Kurdish language is only taught to upperclassmen.
“If the Kurdish language is not studied from the elementary level, no one will learn it,” lamented Mohammed Abdulla, an administrator in the Kurdistan Teachers' Union branch in Kirkuk.
Instead, he proposed that lessons in Kurdish should begin at the elementary level, emphasizing the difficulty of learning the language later on.
Mahir Hoshang, a Kurdish linguist and Kurdish education activist in the disputed district of Khanaqin in Diyala province, explained that some families in disputed areas prefer not to enroll their children in Kurdish schools because of furloughs amid unpaid salaries from the KRG.
In Kirkuk, some civil servants and teachers are employed by the KRG while others fall under the jurisdiction of Baghdad.
Although Baghdad has paid the salaries of the Kurdistan Region’s civil servants this year, delays have occurred, which they have attributed to issues such as duplicate names on the payroll list.
Kirkuk is a multi-ethnic city home to Kurds, Arabs, and Turkmen. The city was under joint administration before 2014 when Kurds took full control after Iraqi forces withdrew in the face of the Islamic State (ISIS). Kurds held the city until October 16, 2017, when Iraqi forces retook control and expelled Kurdish security forces following the KRG’s independence referendum.
The territories disputed between Iraq’s federal government in Baghdad and the KRG in Erbil include areas in Nineveh province, as well as the provinces of Kirkuk, Salahaddin, and Diyala - home to ethnically diverse populations
In September, Rauf Saadullah, head of the Kurdish education supervision unit in Kirkuk, told Rudaw that the Iraqi government has “neglected” its responsibilities in the province by not supporting Kurdish education while extending support to Turkmen and Arabic education.
Kamaran Ali, head of Kurdish education, highlighted that nearly 100 schools in Kirkuk need renovation infrastructure challenges.
“In many schools when it rains, problems occur, and water leaks into classes,” Ali said.
Saadullah criticized Baghdad for failing to provide financial compensation and salaries for Kurdish education, emphasizing it is their “legitimate right,” as the Iraqi government takes “all” of its revenues.
In January 2023, Sana Hidayat Garmiyani, the director general of Kurdish education at Iraq’s education ministry, stated that Kurdish education in disputed areas would commence in alignment with the Iraqi ministry’s curriculum. Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani’s agenda includes an initiative to transfer thousands of Kurdish teachers to the federal government’s payroll.
