Iraq education minister says no problems with Kurdish education in Kirkuk

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iraq’s education minister on Friday said that there is Kurdish-education in Kirkuk and other Iraqi provinces and that his ministry had good relations with its counterpart in the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). 

“We have a general directorate in the ministry of education concerning this matter - Kurdish education going on in Kirkuk, Baghdad, and other provinces,” Education Minister Ibrahim Namis al-Jubouri told Rudaw’s Diyar Kurda on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York City. 

Jubouri said that they are currently employing teachers who specialize in Kurdish and education in Kurdish, and that there were no problems in his ministry regarding this matter. 

The minister also said that there is a “huge cooperation and activity” between the education ministries of both the federal government and the KRG. 

There was a ban on Kurdish language in Kirkuk under Saddam Hussein, as a part of effort to convert the multi-ethnic oil-rich territory into a predominantly Arab region. After the US-led invasion that ousted the Baathist regime in 2003, Kurdish education resumed in Kirkuk. The KRG established administrative units in many of the disputed areas such as Kirkuk, Shingal, Mandali, Makhmour, Sheikhan, Dubiz, and Tuz Khurmatu, employing thousands of employees. 

A large number of Kurdish teachers and students fled Kirkuk after October 16, 2017, when the Peshmerga withdrew from the disputed province and the Iraqi army and Shiite paramilitaries took over in the wake of the Kurdistan Region’s independence referendum. 

An estimated 615 schools and 32 kindergartens in Kirkuk province educate students in the Kurdish language. These are run by 7,600 teachers and 400 support staff, according to a 2020 data from the Kurdish Studies Department in Kirkuk. There are 98,000 students studying the Kurdish language in the province.