Iraq - Literacy slumps post-invasion
WORKERS, APR 2007 ISSUE
Educational levels, essential to modern civilised life, have plummeted in Iraq since the 2003 invasion. In just four years, the number of adults who can read and write has dropped from 90 to 68 per cent, according to reports presented in March at a Unesco conference in Dohar.
Many school buildings are either destroyed by bombs or occupied by militias, with around 3000 schools in southern or central Iraq looted or in ruins. Children are being kept at home because of the dangers of being out in the streets. Just 30 per cent of children attend school now, compared to 75 per cent in 2005–6. Female literacy has been particularly hard hit, slipping to just 48 per cent.
So much for the billions of dollars poured into the "reconstruction effort". Dr Qutub Khan, a Unesco educationalist in Iraq, said: "We have no buildings, no teachers, no resources, and minimal budgets. . . . Children have seen teachers and friends killed in the classroom."