The United Nations Security Council imposed economic sanctions on Iraq with Resolution 661 of 6 August 1990. It included a full trade embargo barring all imports from and exports to Iraq, excepting only medical supplies, foodstuffs, and other items of humanitarian need, as determined by the Security Council Sanctions Committee, which was also established by the same resolution. More than thirty resolutions have followed that one, of which two are relevant here: Resolution 986 of 14 April 1995, better known as the ''Oil for Food Programme’’, which enabled Iraq to sell up to US-$ 1 billion of oil every 90 days and use the proceeds for humanitarian supplies to the country; and Resolution 1483 of 22 May 2003, ending all sanctions, except those related to the sale or supply to Iraq of arms and related material. (For a complete list of United Nations sanctions against Iraq see United Nations 2004.)
Much has been written about the legality and morality of the sanctions, the war and the occupation. While the present contribution cannot deal with this topic, according to the former Director of the World Food Programme in Iraq in 1999 and 2000, the sanctions on Iraq were the most severe and the most prolonged ever been imposed on a country. In addition, the trade embargo established under Security Council Resolution 661 was accompanied by unilaterally imposed and lasting military action of varying intensity, thereby constituting, together with the trade sanctions, a classic blockade (Burghardt 2001).
The education system in Iraq has been affected by these policies in two ways. First, it has been one of the targets of both military action and the sanctions. Second, the sanctions have had the gravest consequences not only for current, but also for future generations.
Several Iraqi government reports, and others by specialised international agencies like UNESCO and UNICEF, which will be referred to in more detail in the next pages, have already shown the quantitative negative effects of the sanctions on the Iraqi education system. The qualitative negative effects today and those that can reasonably be expected in the future are much more difficult to ascertain. In any case, a picture emerges of an unparalleled educational catastrophe in Iraq.
Since the war launched by the Coalition Forces against the country ended in May 2003, Iraq has remained under occupation by the Coalition Provisional Authority. This and subsequent events, most notably the armed conflict currently taking place between resistance guerrillas and occupation soldiers, inhibit the reconstruction of the education system.
Overall view of the pre-sanctions Iraqi education system
Iraq is a signatory country to the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights; the 1970 International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights; the 1989 Convention of the Rights of the Child; and the 1990 Education for All Declaration. The objectives of the national public educational system were set out in Article 28 of the Iraqi Constitution under the heading of Education Goals (Republic of Iraq 1990):
"Education has the objective of raising and developing the general educational level, promoting scientific thinking, animating the research spirit, responding to exigencies of economic and social evolution and development programs, creating a national, liberal and progressive generation, strong physically and morally, proud of his people, his homeland and heritage, aware of all his national rights, and who struggles against the capitalistic ideology, exploitation, reaction, Zionism, and imperialism for the purpose of realizing Arab unity, liberty and socialism."
There were, however, several versions of this objective. Another (Republic of Iraq, Ministry of Education 2000) reads:
"In Iraq, the inclusive objective that leads the general aims of all learning levels stated the following: To bring up a comprehensive generation, believing in God, loving his country, believing in his Arab nation and its aims: unity, liberty and socialism; acknowledging scientific thinking, armored by science and moral, employing work and self-instruction, having the will of struggle, capable of confronting crucial challenges, comprehensive of the facts of cultural development, open to human mind in a frame of contemporary genuineness."
The Ministry of Education was charged with general educational policy, its monitoring and supervision (Ministry of Education Law, No. 34, 1998). Educational policy was implemented by the 18 Directorates General of Education in the governorates, the political divisions of the national territory. The Ministry ran a strongly centralized national system according to the principle of centralization of planning and decentralization of implementation.
Primary education involved 6 years of schooling, followed by secondary education consisting of an intermediate level (3 years) and a university preparatory level (3 years). Secondary education had an academic (with separate literary and scientific curricula) and a vocational stream. These schools, together with the relatively few non-compulsory pre-schools as well as teacher training institutes (for primary school teachers), were under the authority of the Ministry of Education. The universities were under the authority of the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, responsible for the scientific policy of the country.
In 1975 the government established the right to free education from primary to university level, although only primary education was made compulsory (1976: Compulsory Education Law). As a result, education was provided free of charge at all levels. Also in 1976 the Iraqi government launched a national campaign to combat illiteracy (Eradication of Illiteracy Law No. 92, 1976).
The education level among Iraqi women improved greatly as a result of these policies of free and compulsory education. At primary level, the female enrolment rate was very close to that of males during the 1980s (approximately 47% female against 53% male). However, at the non-compulsory levels of education, the difference was far greater: 40% female against 60% male. The gross enrolment ratio for primary and secondary levels was 111% (this figure includes those who failed to attain the school leaving certificate and remained at school) and 47%, respectively, for the school year 1990/91. The ratio of the two levels together was 82% for the same school year.
Regarding higher education, the numbers of students per 100,000 inhabitants were 781; 803; 1,067; and 1,188, respectively, for the years 1975, 1980, 1985 and 1988, demonstrating an increase of 52% between 1975 and 1988. In the school year 1991/92, 37,420 students, of whom 47% were female, graduated from all institutions of higher learning.
In the school year 1988/89, an estimated 690 million Iraqi dinars were allocated to educational development, representing a 238% increase since 1976. Educational spending was estimated at 6.4% of total government expenditure. The largest share of this budget, 47%, was allocated to primary education, while 27% was allocated to secondary education, and 20% to higher education (United Nations 1999a). (The Iraqi dinar was worth US-$ 3.20 before the United Nations embargo that followed Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait. By August 2002 it was trading at just below 2,000 to the US dollar, and by mid-April 2003 it had slipped to somewhere between 3,500 and 4,000. In July 2003 one US dollar equalled about 1,500 Iraqi dinars.)
Because of government investment, the Iraqi education system experienced dramatic quantitative growth immediately before sanctions were imposed. The United Nations Office of the Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq outlined the picture by stating that ''at the beginning of the 1980s Iraq had one of the best education systems in the Arab world. The gross enrolment rate (GER) for primary schooling was around 100%’’, adding that ''the Higher Education, especially the scientific and technological institutions were of international standard, staffed by high quality personnel’’ (United Nations Office of the Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq 2003).
Throughout the 1970s, teachers, like all civil servants, were obliged to join the Baath Party, the ruling political party until May 2003. A minority took advantage of party membership to move through the ranks, while the majority were subjected to ideology tests and surveillance. The regime also used schools - in particular the teaching of history, geography and literature - to impose Baathist ideas. Universities and research centres did not escape political control, and ''a pattern of systematic abuses and corruption of higher education and scholarly research by the state apparatus’’ became the norm (Watenpaugh et al. 2003).
The effects of sanctions on the education system
As a member of the main international educational organisations, UNESCO and UNICEF, Iraq submitted several reports during the 1990s on its particular situation and progress. These organisations also periodically published
their own reports about trends and developments in Iraq (Republic of Iraq, Ministry of Education 1996, 2000; Republic of Iraq, UNICEF 2000; UNESCO International Bureau of Education 2001). The damage inflicted on the education system becomes apparent in these reports. No educational level, sector, service or institution was spared.
The UNESCO International Bureau of Education, in its 2000 report on Iraqi education, observed the following:
"The education system faces a number of interrelated problems which hinder the achievement of its objectives, the most important of which are: providing and maintaining adequate school buildings so as to meet the requirements of quantitative and qualitative development; providing adequate numbers of teachers to meet the increasing need for education at various levels; providing instructional materials, in particular stationery and school furniture; providing prerequisites for curricula, teaching aids and educational technologies; and developing evaluation and examination techniques through the introduction of modern technologies."
A more detailed description of this overall picture can be obtained from UNICEF’s ''Analysis Situation’’ on Iraq (2002). Regarding primary school,
"23.7% of children of primary school age (6-11) are not in primary school, with nearly twice as many girls staying out of school as boys - 31.2% of girls and 17.5% of boys. The erosion of attendance has affected rural areas more than the urban areas."
Regarding secondary school,
"drop-out rates have increased at the intermediate and preparatory levels of education (ages 12-17, and levels 1-6). The number of boys enrolled at the third intermediate level in 1997-98 was only 68% of those who enrolled at the first intermediate level."
Regarding literacy campaigns,
"there has been a sharp decline in adult female literacy rates since the mid 1980s, from 87% in 1985 to 49% in 1990 and 45% in 1995."
Regarding school buildings, facilities and teaching materials,
"in most primary schools, the school day has been shortened to cater for two and sometimes three shifts of children a day. There are severe shortages of basic school supplies, classroom furniture, textbooks and teaching aids. Estimates provided by the Ministry of Education indicate that schools lack approximately 500,000 teaching aid units, 2 million desks and 15,000 computers. The Ministry also adds that they used to distribute a wide range of stationery items free of charge (i.e., 15 million pencils, 2 million erasers, 5 million geometry sets, etc.), but these are no longer being distributed."
Regarding the teaching profession, some teachers,
"unable to cope with high costs in the face of shrinking real incomes, have resorted to providing extra lessons to those who can afford them. Other teachers took on a second or even third job, while others simply abandoned teaching to engage in 'other income-generating activities’."
Finally,
"the curriculum has remained basically unchanged for 20 years."
Appalling as this data may appear, they have to be compared to that of the pre-sanctions years in order to get a complete picture of the sharp decline of the Iraqi education system in the last 13 years. This can be seen through data provided by specialised international agencies. In early 1999, the agencies of the United Nations working in Iraq prepared reports on the situation for the Security Council’s Humanitarian Panel. Studies were conducted on the most important social sectors - health, population, poverty, and education - by the corresponding agencies: the World Health Organisation; United Nations Development Programme; and UNESCO.
According to the UNESCO report, the school year 1995/96 witnessed a visible decline in GER, specifically 91.7% at primary, 39% at intermediate (12-14 age group), and 16% at preparatory level (15-17 age group). These figures put Iraq behind the average GER for the Middle East for the years 1990-96 (62% for male and 51% for female children at secondary level, 97% for male and 83% for female children at primary level). For the years 1993-97 net enrolment was estimated at 88% for male and 80% for female children for the same region (UNESCO 2000).
Concerning the basic education level of the population, the literacy rate was estimated at 52% for the whole of Iraq in 1977. By 1987 the literacy rate had increased to 80%. Iraq was internationally recognised for the remarkable progress it had made in eradicating illiteracy. In 1995, however, the rate of illiteracy was estimated at 42%, representing a major shift back towards illiteracy. The illiteracy rate for women was estimated at 65% for the same period, not far from the Middle Eastern average of 63%. The Iraqi government estimated that illiteracy made a rapid comeback, at a rate of about 5% every year since the imposition of the sanctions (UNESCO 2000)
Teacher-training did not escape the crisis. During the 1980s there was an increase in the number of teacher-training institutes. This was deemed necessary to cater for an expanding education system. In 1990/91 a total of 32,002 students were enrolled at all grades, which represented a 12% increase from 1986/87. Admissions for the same year revealed a 34% increase over the same period, from 6,817 to 9,124. Students spent 5 years training after intermediate and 2 years after preparatory secondary-school level before they could qualify as teachers. However, the breakdown of the training system brought an increase of the number of unqualified teachers (UNESCO 2000).
The provision of in-service training activities for teachers, supervisors, educational specialists and administrators also suffered. During the school year 1994/95, a total of 56,237 education staff from all pre-university levels participated in courses and seminars. In the same school year, according to figures provided by the Ministry of Education to the 45th session of the International Conference on Education, the total number of teaching personnel was 228,839, which means that less than a quarter of these received any in-service training (Republic of Iraq, Ministry of Education 1996).
It has been argued that Resolution 986 (''Oil for Food’’), introduced in 1995, was aimed at alleviating the living conditions of the Iraqi people, their education included. Whether or not that was the aim, the fact remains
(UNESCO 2003) that
"during the 1990s the educational system in the Centre/South - under the control of the government of Iraq - deteriorated to a great extent despite the provision of some basic educational supplies through the Oil for Food Programme. Meanwhile, in Northern Iraq - under the control of foreign forces - rehabilitation and reconstruction programmes implemented by United Nations agencies, including UNESCO, succeeded in alleviating the critical condition of the schools and institutions of higher education."
Although corruption among Iraqi officials undoubtedly hindered the operation of the Oil for Food Programme, only the lifting of the sanctions could really alleviate the living conditions of the population.
Educational and national collapse
Sanctions did not just affect the education system. They affected all aspects of Iraqi life: infrastructure, employment, health, and the social fabric. Naturally, the general national decline had a profound effect on the lives of students and teachers.
The educational community - pupils, teachers, parents and administrators - has been overwhelmed by events and has been living under highly stressed conditions for years. For over two decades Iraq has been in a continuous state of war - first against Iran in the 1980s, and since then against the international coalitions of 1991 and 2003. Because of the dire social conditions existing at present and the lack of hope for any immediate improvement, the population lives in a state of permanent crisis. Schools simply reflect the prevailing
social atmosphere.
Regarding the cumulative effects of sustained deprivation on the psychosocial cohesion of the Iraqi population, the Panel on the Humanitarian Situation in Iraq, established by the President of the Security Council on 30 January 1999 (S/1999/100), reported the following: increase in juvenile delinquency, begging and prostitution; anxiety about the future and lack of motivation; a rising sense of isolation bred by absence of contact with the outside world; the development of a parallel economy replete with profiteering and criminality; cultural and scientific impoverishment; and disruption of family life.
Iraq is in a state of general collapse, however, not just educational. No other social sector can come to the rescue of the education system, because what has been said about the education sector can be said of every other sector. This has also been noted by the Panel. According to its assessment already in 1999 (United Nations 1999b), there is
"a continuing degradation of the Iraqi economy with an acute deterioration in the living conditions of the Iraqi population and severe strains on its social fabric. As summarized by the UNDP field office, 'the country has experienced a shift from relative affluence to massive poverty’. In marked contrast to the prevailing situation prior to the events of 1990/91, the infant mortality rates in Iraq today are among the highest in the world, and low infant birth weight affects at least 23% of all births. Chronic malnutrition affects every fourth child under five years of age, only 41% of the population have regular access to clean water, 83% of all schools need substantial repairs. The International Committee of the Red Cross states that the Iraqi health-care system is today in a decrepit state."
Thus, there is ample reliable documentation of the negative changes Iraq has undergone since sanctions were imposed in August 1990 (The Economist 1998; UNICEF 1998; United Nations 1999a). These changes can be contrasted with the notable improvements made in the two previous decades, the 1970s and 1980s. The authors of a recent study on childhood mortality during the sanctions era (Ali and Shah 2000) explain this dramatic turn of events:
"During the past 20 years Iraq has witnessed spectacular social and economic development, followed by a dramatic decline. The per-capita gross domestic product (GDP), for example, was estimated at US-$ 3,510 in 1989, but only US-$ 450 in 1996. Before 1991, much progress had been made in building roads and infrastructure as well as improving human skills by expansion of education and advanced training. During the same period, healthcare reached about 97% of the urban and 79% of rural population. The country had a well-developed water and sanitation system and 90% of the population was estimated to have access to safe drinking water."
A widely accepted indicator of the level of development acquired by a country is the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Human Development Index, which measures national achievements in health, education, and per-capita GDP. The steady improvements made in all sectors came to a halt in 1990. In 1990, following the war with Iran (1980-1988), Iraq was ranked 50th out of 130 countries on the Human Development
Index. Five years later, in 1995, the country had slipped to 106th out of 174 countries. On the 2000 Index, Iraq was ranked 126th, which means that it was approaching the bottom of the same category (United Nations Development Programme 2003).
While considering the situation in Iraq in relation to sanctions, and particularly the situation of its education system, it must be stressed that, in the words of the Panel commissioned by the Security Council (United Nations 1999b), ''the Iraqi people would not be undergoing such deprivations in the absence of the prolonged measures imposed by the Security Council and the effects of war.’’
The Coalition Provisional Authority
Resolution 1483 of 22 May 2003 put an end to the sanctions against Iraq. Also in May 2003, without any separate resolution, Iraq came under foreign occupation. The Coalition Provisional Authority took control of the country, including its education system. Consistent with the reality of external control, UNESCO (2003) expressed the hope that ''external partners will play a vital supporting role. However, their actions must be based upon the principle of national ownership.’’ Whatever the policies and aims of the Authority regarding the future of the country, international law and international norms consistently support national ownership of education placing responsibility for education management and development in the hands of the Iraqi people.
The Authority abolished the national education curriculum by a decree of 7 July 2003. This took place shortly after the United Nations Security Council agreed on 27 June 2003 to fund a programme for revising and rewriting school curricula. A team of Authority-appointed Iraqi educators, supervised by international personnel, has started to revise textbooks. However, it is doubtful, both legally and materially, that this will lead to a new national curriculum. According to the Office of the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq (2003), the task of rebuilding Iraqi education to an internationally satisfactory level will take many years and great resources, even as ''it must be up to the Iraqis themselves to set the attainment targets for this work and decide structure and contents of their future education system’’.
The Coalition Provisional Authority’s first actions in relation to education were to remove pictures of the former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein from school buildings and his statements from text-books, and more significantly to remove all content influenced by Baathist ideology. Furthermore, school heads, faculty deans and Ministry of Education officials with links to the Baath party have been dismissed. Contracts have been signed with non-Iraqi firms and agencies for advice, management and reconstruction of the education
system.
Around six million Iraqi students went back to school on the 1st of October 2003. At the end of the month, however, the Coalition Provisional Authority ordered the schools to close again. Ongoing instability has dramatically hindered the normal operation of schools and educational activities. The system has suffered as a result of widespread violence, power cuts and lack of appropriate teaching conditions in many education centres. Because of this, families feel insecure about sending children to schools. Lack of economic resources and psychological distress are also a hindrance to educational progress.
The International Crisis Group (Watenpaugh et al. 2003) has reported that
"Baghdad is a city in distress, chaos and ferment. It is on issues that concern its citizens the most that the occupying forces have done least, and anger is palpable on the ground. Electricity, for example, has only just begun to be available for longer periods, and its supply is still unreliable. Time-consuming queues at gasoline stations and a pervasive sense of insecurity remain particularly aggravating for a population that has seen its government buildings and national institutions stripped bare, vandalised and in some cases destroyed in a frenzy involving a combination of looters and (apparently) saboteurs. Baghdadis move about gingerly when they can or, more likely, stay home waiting for a degree of normalcy to return, all the while complaining about their situation or exchanging horror stories about the latest killings, rapes, carjacks and robberies that take place in their neighbourhood due to widespread violence."
The general economic and social situation in Iraq did not significantly improve in the year after the Coalition Provisional Authority took control of the country. At the same time, the security situation continued to deteriorate and extreme violence remained widespread and unabated. Because of such instability, actions remained event-driven, and it has been impossible to re-institute a viable education community capable of fulfilling its mandate.
Conclusion
With regard to the effects of sanctions on the education system, it must be said that qualitative damage is far more difficult to assess than quantitative damage, and in some respects it can only be assessed over a longer period. However, there is sufficient information currently available to argue that the sanctions policy not only reversed previous educational achievements but rendered the Iraqi education system unable to serve the population. The introduction of some changes in that policy, such as the Oil for Food Programme, did not noticeably diminish the damage.
Clearly the impact of the sanctions will affect future generations of school children and university students. They will inherit a seriously impaired educational system. In addition, other social structures also affected by the sanctions are in a similarly decrepit state. The education system - indeed, the whole country - has been de-developed through thirteen years of sanctions, as has been demonstrated by the UNDP’s Index of Human Development and the reports of other international agencies.
The stated aim of United Nations Security Council Resolution 661 was ''to bring the invasion and occupation of Kuwait by Iraq to an end and to restore the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of Kuwait’’ and to ensure ''the maintenance of international peace and security’’. However, it also achieved the de-development of all Iraqi social systems, including education. The imposition of sanctions is a radical policy that is rarely implemented. Imposition of severe sanctions, as the Iraqi case reveals, causes enormous damage which ought to be carefully balanced against any political aims well beforehand.
In order for Iraq to resume development, abundant international help must be made available appropriate to the extent of the de-development. The desolation of the education system is not the country’s only problem by any means. The reconstruction of the education system, together with that of the country as a whole, should, as international law requires and history teaches, be in the hands of the Iraqis themselves. Confusion about the legality of the Coalition’s actions and measures in Iraq and continuing instability and widespread violence do not work in favour of the reconstruction process.
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