Shafaqna English- UNICEF says half Iraqi schools are damaged and the number of qualified teachers has decreased, and the World Bank has warned that the fall in education standards is harming economic growth. Moreover, Iraqi schools suffer from severe mismanagement, according to Iraqi News.
In a small village in central Iraq, children cram into dilapidated classrooms in a converted farmhouse with open-air toilets, a symptom of how education has been neglected in the oil-rich but war-weary country.
“We close the school when it rains because water leaks through the roof,” said Oudai Abdallah, Director of a public elementary school in Bani Saad district, 40 kilometres (25 miles) north of Baghdad.
“We fear it might collapse on students,” he said of the makeshift roof of wood and straw. It’s a far cry from the 1970s and 1980s, when Iraq’s education system was the envy of the region.
Sources: Iraqi News