New school year in Kurdistan ’powerful response to adversaries’

DOHUK, Kurdistan Region  - The Kurdistan Region began the new school year this week as authorities struggle to cope with major economic woes complicated by a flood of refugees, financial problems with Baghdad and the war with the Islamic State group.

“Starting the new school year is a powerful response to adversaries that life in Kurdistan goes on despite hardships,” Kurdish Education Minister Pshtiwan Sadiq told teachers and students in Dohuk, as more than 1.7 million pupils began the first day of classes on Tuesday.

The Kurdish government is coping with nearly 50,000 new pupils going to elementary school for the first time, as it fights a war with the Islamic State (ISIS) along a border more than 1,300 kilometers long.

The minister praised the people of Dohuk for their “hospitality towards refugees” last year, when a half-million displaced people from Nineveh province and Syria flooded into the Kurdish province from other parts of Iraq and neighboring Syria, fleeing the conflict with ISIS. Many sought shelter in school buildings across Dohuk.

Sadiq said the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) had allocated three billion dinars (about $250 million) to renovate school facilities and another 12 billion dinars (around $900 million) to print much needed school books.

He said an additional budget has been approved for major investment in English-language courses alongside Kurdish.

But the picture is not all too rosy, according to the minister, who told Rudaw earlier that the region will need many more schools to cope with the growing number of school children.

“Classrooms built to accommodate 20 children sometimes hold more than 50,” said Sadiq, adding the region needed to build 
400 schools a year over the next decade to resolve the shortage.

According to KRG estimates, 36 percent of Kurdistan’s 5.2 million population is under 14 years of age, and the ratio will likely increase, given the 2.6 percent population growth rate expected over the next decade.

Sadiq complained that schools had to introduce double shifts to accommodate demand, meaning shorter class periods and greater stress for teachers.

According to the director of the Dohuk Education Office more than 400 schoolteachers have taken a leave of absence and migrated to the West.

“The number could be much higher when we complete our survey, which is ongoing now,” said Abd Yousef, who added that most teachers had left because of the double shifts and lack of sufficient classrooms.

Yousef said no schools have been built in Dohuk province since 2013 due to a budget crunch, from a fall in oil prices and financial disagreements with the central government in Baghdad.

The financial crunch has been compounded by nearly two million refugees and displaced persons that have sought refuge in Kurdistan from other parts of Iraq and from Syria.

KRG sources told Rudaw last month that Baghdad had refused to send its share of oil revenues from Kurdish oil, sold through the central government, for the month of April, reneging on a previous agreement.

The two governments reached a groundbreaking agreement in December last year, which ended simmering disputes between the two governments over the share of oil revenues, but Baghdad has refused to abide by the terms of the deal.