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Iraq universities battle for twenty-first century renaissance
Middle East Times ^ | June 13, 2005 | Bill Ickes and Ammar Karim

Posted on 06/13/2005 10:39:47 AM PDT by nickcarraway

BAGHDAD -- Rebuilding the Iraqi higher education system will have to be done by degrees because while funds are available and progress has been made, goodwill and hard work must battle insurgent assassins and years of decline.

"I fear for my life as a professor," said Salwa Al Awadi, who teaches genetic engineering at the University of Baghdad. "When I walk in the street I am a target."

At least 49 academics have been murdered since the fall of former leader Saddam Hussein in April 2003, according to UN figures, while political scientist Whamid Nadhmi puts the figure around 80.

Nadhmi and his colleagues will see their salaries doubled next month as authorities seek to plug a brain drain, but their libraries have been ravaged by looting and arson and even obsolete laboratory equipment has vanished.

"They've just been hanging on by their fingernails," said US archaeology Professor Elizabeth Stone, describing the hand-to-mouth existence of academics who once drove taxis to supplement salaries equivalent to $10 a month.

In July their pay will reach $300 to $1,000 depending on qualifications and seniority.

But universities really thrive on knowledge and Iraq's academic centers have fallen far behind as conflict and sanctions prevented professors from keeping abreast of vast changes since the 1991 Gulf War.

"Libraries here are empty," said a program director at the USAID agency, which is getting teachers back in the mainstream through programs in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, and by sending students to study in the United States.

Lucky agricultural candidates have gone to the University of Hawaii, law students to De Paul University in Chicago and budding archaeologists to study with Stone at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Stony Brook.

"I have to say I'm really pleased with them," she said. "They've been working really hard - I think they were shocked at how hard they were expected to work."

Following intensive English classes her four students "took a full course load in the spring semester. They all passed all of their courses."

One might stay on for a PhD but once they graduate "I think most of the others probably want to go home," where Stone hopes they will join the staff of the Iraq National Museum or faculties across the country.

Generating such exchanges is a goal for many professors in Iraq, including Awadi who cited the Italian- and Indian-based International Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology as a group that she would want to work with.

Nabil Sadun Aathari, who teaches business administration, said that he pores over economic and business reports from Harvard and Oxford, but added that a meeting with a delegation from the elite US school did not lead to much.

"They sent some secondhand computers. Some saw it as an honor, others as an insult."

Computers were cited by Stone as an area where her students made "extraordinary progress.

"Two of them took a quite sophisticated course in how to analyze satellite imagery and geographic information systems," hurdling technical and linguistic obstacles.

"When they were told they should unzip [uncompress] a file they didn't know what that meant."

Obstacles remain nonetheless, including the cost of studying in the US, which she put at around $15,000 to $20,000 a year, since SUNY gives the Iraqis free tuition.

USAID estimated a student's annual budget at $50,000 and guarantees one year of study, counting on other donors to take over after that.

The agency has dispersed $20.7 million since the spring of 2003 on higher education in Iraq, where scores of programs vie for funding.

Its program director said that colleges of education should be a priority and that new campuses were less crucial than getting more teachers and students together.

"People can learn under a tree," he noted, as demonstrated by figures like Buddha and Isaac Newton.

Others feel that restocking labs and renovating classrooms and cafeterias is key to restoring pride in a system that was once a magnet for the entire Middle East.

Going to an extreme, an engineering professor at the University of Mosul reportedly said: "It's great we were looted, now we have new equipment."

Stone, however, urged that top academics be trained to infuse Iraqi universities with the ethic for "absolutely serious" work, warning that the best and brightest would otherwise be tempted by job offers abroad.

"And then", she warned, "you may not have higher education in Iraq".


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Extended News; Foreign Affairs; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: culture; iraq; iraqieducation; rebuildingiraq

1 posted on 06/13/2005 10:39:47 AM PDT by nickcarraway
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To: nickcarraway

Are more or less teachers being targeted now or before under Saddam??


2 posted on 06/13/2005 10:43:22 AM PDT by handy old one (It is unbecoming for young men to utter maxims. Aristotle)
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To: nickcarraway

They have a long way to go that is for certain. Living in Saddams Iraq in many cases meant not having any ownership or responsibility of anything. Just living and surviving was the ticket. When our Army and Marines ousted Saddam, and sent his henchmen into hiding, the doors where wide open for the good folks of Iraq to go totally nuts and ruin much of what was in place. No difference between lets say Ceceil Moore in Philly during the sixtees burning down parts of downtown Philly shopping distric, or the LA riots. Now we gotta start from scratch. Of course the "unzip" example means nothing. I bet you could asked a few hundred thousand American University folk to unzip some file you sent them and they wouldn't have a clue as to what you where asking of them. In this case, all one has to do is put any number of type windoze archival programs on a given computer, and show someone in ten minutes how to zip and unzip files etc.. The real issue is so much lab equipment and material infrastructure was ruined and or looted from all their universtities. They have little to work with. And I am sure ninety five percent of our readership while watching the Iraqi's looting their land, back when, knew what would come to past. Now we shall read articles, but not any new news hear, been said for the past two years on and off.


3 posted on 06/13/2005 11:47:53 AM PDT by Marine_Uncle
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