Iraq Education Initiative

To upgrade the educational system in Iraq and restore its status in the world, Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki has announced an education initiative that aims to develop education in Iraq. One of the objectives of the initiative is to send students on scholarship to continue their studies in well-established universities abroad with the range of 10,000 over five years in all specializations so as to fill the gap between the education level in Iraq and that of the rest of the most developed world.

To implement this initiative, a Higher Committee for Educational Development was formed in accordance with clearance 359 on 5/11/2008 under the chairmanship of Prime Minister, and membership of Minister of higher education, minister of education, a number of university professors and those who are concerned with higher education affairs.

The following are the bases of the initiative:

1.       Developing the specialized educational cadre through sending students on scholarships to well-established universities.

2.       Developing education at all levels by modernizing the curricula and introducing new teaching methods.

3.       Opening doors towards international universities and exchanging expertise.

4.       Creating an academic atmosphere and an appropriate standard of living for the talented expatriates.

To achieve the above, the committee has started to specify the mechanisms required to implement its plans and to overcome the obstacles which have been facing scholarship were also established. The result of all these efforts was Baghdad January even for the period 19-20^th, January 2008 in Al-Rasheed hotel, Al-Zawrah hall. It was the first of its kind in which 24 American universities and a group of British universities participated.

Sending a large number of students on scholarships requires establishing an integrated and effective system which should be in conformity with the Iraqi student's reality on one hand and the enormous change taking place in the world educational systems on the other.      The committee has endorsed the idea of using a third-party global consulting firm to such a system making use of other countries' experiences. Therefore, a Pilot Project will soon begin to send over 500 Iraqi students to American and British universities. The distribution of scholarships will cover all Iraqi provinces based on the statistical data supplied by the Ministry of planning. The allocation of scholarships to each province is as follows:

 

No.	Province	Population	Number of  Scholarships
1	Baghdad	7145470	121
2	Mosul	2811091	48
3	Basra	1912533	33
4	Sulaymaniyah	1893617	32
5	Babel	1651565	28
6	Dhi Qar	1616226	28
7	Diyala	1560621	27
8	Arbil	1542421	26
9	Anbar	1485985	26
10	Salah Aldeen	1191403	21
11	Najaf	1081203	19
12	Wasit	1064950	18
13	Qadisiyah	990483	17
14	Kirkuk	902019	16
15	Kerbalaa	887859	15
16	Missan	824147	14
17	Muthana	614997	11
18	Dahuk	505491	9
	Total	29682081	509