About a year after taking office, Iraq’s higher education minister asked a senior professor if he would like to be president of one of Baghdad’s universities.
The man was “very qualified”, says Abid Thyab al-Ajeeli but he grimly turned down the offer. “He said, ‘Mr Minister, I think you want my two daughters to be orphaned’.
Such were the travails of running a government department during the bloodiest years of sectarian violence between 2005 and early 2008. Educated professionals were often targeted for assassination, kidnapping or robbery. There were 31,598 reported attacks on educational institutions between the US-led invasion of 2003 and October 2008. A 2007 government study found about a third of professors, doctors, pharmacists and engineers had fled the country, according to the UN.
Today, however, Mr Ajeeli is upbeat. The level of violence has fallen and professors are now “sometimes fighting” over posts.The government, assisted by the World Bank and UN, is drawing up a plan for education and Mr Ajeeli says his budget has increased. “We are in a good position,” he says. “Without education . . . we will never be built in a proper way.”
As with many other areas in Iraq, improvement starts from a low base. One in five Iraqis aged over 15 is illiterate, according to the UN, and anything from 500,000 to almost 2m children do not go to school. With about 60 per cent of Iraq’s 30m population aged under 18, education is a key issue.
“We see a huge bubble of youth that are falling out of the education system and as long as there are no job opportunities that is a concern,” says Mette Nordstrand, an education specialist at Unicef, the UN children’s agency. Youth unemployment runs at roughly 30 per cent. Schools suffer acute shortages of teaching and learning materials, while often lacking water and toilet facilities. More than one in six schools has been vandalised, damaged or destroyed.
But salaries absorb 80-90 per cent of the education ministry’s budget and negligible sums are devoted to maintenance.In the higher education ministry building – surrounded by checkpoints and blast walls – Mr Ajeeli’s office is air-conditioned and smartly furnished. But on the floors above, cigarette butts litter threadbare carpets while people fan themselves in gloomy corridors: there is no electricity so the air-conditioning is silent.
In a country where the public sector is the key source of jobs, government offices are bloated. The higher education ministry employs 30,000 academics for 21 universities and some 40 technical institutions, with another 50,000 support staff – double what is needed according to Mr Ajeeli. “We cannot sack people,” says Mr Ajeeli. “If we sack them, where are they going to go?”
Corruption is a problem. The US military said this week a port official had auctioned off computers worth $1.9m, intended for schools and paid for by America. The consignment was sold for $47,500.
Then there is the fractious nature of Iraqi politics. Officials have been given posts according to political loyalties, not their ability. Mr Ajeeli describes his early years in office as akin to being in a “battlefield”. “I did not receive much support from the government, especially during the . . . first three years because of conflict of interest, because of their suspicion, or suspicions with the members of the government itself,” he says.
That has improved, he adds. But Iraqis have been waiting since elections on March 7 for politicians to form a government. When it comes to the political environment “nothing is certain”, says Mr Ajeeli.
The Financial Times
The man was “very qualified”, says Abid Thyab al-Ajeeli but he grimly turned down the offer. “He said, ‘Mr Minister, I think you want my two daughters to be orphaned’.
Such were the travails of running a government department during the bloodiest years of sectarian violence between 2005 and early 2008. Educated professionals were often targeted for assassination, kidnapping or robbery. There were 31,598 reported attacks on educational institutions between the US-led invasion of 2003 and October 2008. A 2007 government study found about a third of professors, doctors, pharmacists and engineers had fled the country, according to the UN.
Today, however, Mr Ajeeli is upbeat. The level of violence has fallen and professors are now “sometimes fighting” over posts.The government, assisted by the World Bank and UN, is drawing up a plan for education and Mr Ajeeli says his budget has increased. “We are in a good position,” he says. “Without education . . . we will never be built in a proper way.”
As with many other areas in Iraq, improvement starts from a low base. One in five Iraqis aged over 15 is illiterate, according to the UN, and anything from 500,000 to almost 2m children do not go to school. With about 60 per cent of Iraq’s 30m population aged under 18, education is a key issue.
“We see a huge bubble of youth that are falling out of the education system and as long as there are no job opportunities that is a concern,” says Mette Nordstrand, an education specialist at Unicef, the UN children’s agency. Youth unemployment runs at roughly 30 per cent. Schools suffer acute shortages of teaching and learning materials, while often lacking water and toilet facilities. More than one in six schools has been vandalised, damaged or destroyed.
But salaries absorb 80-90 per cent of the education ministry’s budget and negligible sums are devoted to maintenance.In the higher education ministry building – surrounded by checkpoints and blast walls – Mr Ajeeli’s office is air-conditioned and smartly furnished. But on the floors above, cigarette butts litter threadbare carpets while people fan themselves in gloomy corridors: there is no electricity so the air-conditioning is silent.
In a country where the public sector is the key source of jobs, government offices are bloated. The higher education ministry employs 30,000 academics for 21 universities and some 40 technical institutions, with another 50,000 support staff – double what is needed according to Mr Ajeeli. “We cannot sack people,” says Mr Ajeeli. “If we sack them, where are they going to go?”
Corruption is a problem. The US military said this week a port official had auctioned off computers worth $1.9m, intended for schools and paid for by America. The consignment was sold for $47,500.
Then there is the fractious nature of Iraqi politics. Officials have been given posts according to political loyalties, not their ability. Mr Ajeeli describes his early years in office as akin to being in a “battlefield”. “I did not receive much support from the government, especially during the . . . first three years because of conflict of interest, because of their suspicion, or suspicions with the members of the government itself,” he says.
That has improved, he adds. But Iraqis have been waiting since elections on March 7 for politicians to form a government. When it comes to the political environment “nothing is certain”, says Mr Ajeeli.
The Financial Times
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