Iraq's Education System Enters a New Era
Nov. 2, 2003 -- -- Last month, as Iraqi schoolchildren began the new semester after the summer vacations, they also began a new era in Iraqi education. Saddam Hussein's picture had disappeared from most classrooms and textbooks, many teachers' salaries had risen, and on the whole, ABCNEWS and Time news teams found the postwar education situation had improved.
Northern Iraq: Better
Central Iraq: Better
Southern Iraq: Better
Few schools were damaged in the fighting, and prewar disrepair is being addressed. Schools appear to be in better condition than they were before the war.
According to Coalition Provisional Authority officials, $63 million has been spent to improve Iraq's schools. Students are receiving supplies they did not have before, and attendance within the first month of classes appears to match prewar levels.
The only complaints we heard were from Iraqis who thought improvements to schools were merely cosmetic — "just a coat of paint," was a typical gripe. Certainly, in some places such changes masked the fact that books and other basic supplies were lacking.
This says nothing of the quality of education. It also leaves aside the much-reported "de-Saddamizing" of education, or the removal or rewriting of Baathist texts.
Teachers are also being paid more in postwar Iraq, a change that — according to a school principal in Hit, has "had a huge effect on the teachers personally."
The examples are astonishing -- a teacher who earned the equivalent of $4 a month told us she now earns $150. More figures are given below.
Editor's Note: This is not a full-fledged, comprehensive poll. But as ABCNEWS and Time review the reporting, research, and surveys completed on the ground, this may be one of the most comprehensive reporting efforts undertaken since the beginning of the Iraq war.
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