An alarming trend in Iraq’s education system is threatening the existence of Assyrians in the homeland.
While many advancements in the country since 2003 have beefed up infrastructure, electricity and other basic needs, neither the federal government in Baghdad nor the Kurdistan Regional Government in Erbil have prioritized education.
Iraq’s educational system has been found for over 20 years to be grossly underfunded, resulting in horrid conditions in its public schools. The situation grows worse as Baghdad and Erbil neglect constructing new schools to meet the demand of a growing population. In 2022, the World Food Bank estimated Iraq’s population at 44.5 million, a jump of nearly 11 million in just ten years. That number is expected to climb to 80 million by 2050, according to the United Nations.
Funds received by schools are used to cover the cost of teacher salaries. Rarely, if ever, is any of this money given to the maintenance and improvement of the schools themselves. School officials said they aren’t provided the most basic equipment. In one case, a principal was forced to donate his own refrigerator so his staff could have a place to store their lunches and water.
And as public schools continue to deteriorate, an alarming trend in Erbil and Duhok have emerged in their place: the opening of private schools that offer improved conditions.
On the surface, private schools are an improvement. They offer a better academic experience and safer learning environment. But these schools should not be the only option. If they are, we risk completely leaving behind our public schools.
Two challenges emerge from prioritizing private schools: The first is that the cost of sending students to these schools is increasing, straining families who struggle to decide whether to prioritize their children’s education, thus creating a growing class disparity between those who can afford and those who can’t.
The second is these schools are instructed entirely in English.
A rising number of Assyrian children in Erbil’s Ankawa district speak to their parents, relatives and friends in English. When they arrive home, they watch English TV shows and videos on social media. They text in English, read in English, write in English.
As young people continue to abandon their mother language of Syriac, it begs the question of what future they will have in Iraq when they can no longer fluently speak in Arabic or Syriac. The most likely scenario is they become so Westernized in their small English circles, they are led to move abroad. This loss will accelerate the decline of Assyrians still living in Iraq.
And while this trend is so far contained to Erbil and Duhok, it seems only a matter of time for towns in Nineveh to face the same threat. Parents there demand better education for their children. Private companies are able to do that, but with the caveat of instructing in English.
There seems to be no stopping this existential threat. If it continues, young Assyrians in Iraq will in just a few decades time not have a strong command of their mother tongue, a language that has existed in the homeland in some form for 4,000 years. With no language, young Assyrians have less roots and loyalty to remain in Iraq. Even if they stay, they’ll inevitably struggle to pass down the language to their children.
One of the oldest schools in Iraq resides in Ankawa — the Ankawa primary school. Established in 1921, it’s supposed to serve the district’s nearly 30,000 Assyrian community. Sadly today, the Ankawa primary school only has 40 children from the district, with the gap filled by 70 Kurdish children from Erbil.
How can a school that is 102 years old, with such history, and a town with such a large Assyrian population, only have 40 children? Officials in the school confirmed the reason for these plummeting numbers is due to two reasons: Assyrian families continue to migrate out of the country, and the rise in popularity of private schools.
Families have lost faith in public schools, which nurture their own language and culture, in favor of English-speaking private schools, even if it costs them thousands of dollars more per year.
In the wake of this state neglect, the Shlama Foundation, a nonprofit based in Erbil, has shifted its focus to improving the public schools. It’s spent about $23,000 since last year to improve all eight public schools and a kindergarten in Alqosh. We are looking next to help the Ashurbanipal school in Baghdeda. And finally, we hope to support the Ankawa school.
The governments in Erbil and Baghdad are not going to soon prioritize improving public schools. It’s in their favor to have more private institutions, which would mean less government funding allocated to public schools and these private groups could then be taxed thousands of dollars each year.
But private schools are not the only answer in Iraq. We need to demand our rights to a basic public education system that can provide, at the very least, the minimum level of education. Young Assyrians in the homeland communicating more in English than in Syriac is an alarming trend that will have damaging consequences in the future. We need to put faith back into our public schools and we can’t wait for the state to do it.
Disclaimer: The views expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of The Assyrian Journal.
Noor Matti is a board member and co-founder of The Shlama Foundation. Raised in Ankawa, his family fled Iraq in 1992. He spent two years in Greece as a refugee until his family settled in Detroit. In 2008, Noor moved back to Ankawa. He currently works for Chemonics International.