Education – Iraqi Economists Network

An “illiterate generation”—one of Iraq’s untold pandemic stories. By Hezha Barzani

The impacts of the coronavirus pandemic in Iraq are devastating. With a population of over thirty-nine million, Iraq has totaled at least 1.5 million infections and over eighteen thousand deaths since the start of the pandemic. Like much of the Middle East, the vaccination effort in Iraq is progressing at an alarmingly slow rate—only 0.99 percent of Iraq’s population is fully v

Gilgamesh Nabeel / 05 Apr 2021 The newly opened American University of Iraq–Baghdad, the country’s first American-style, liberal arts-focused institution of higher education outside the Kurdish region, aspires to train the next generation of Iraqi leaders. Students inside a classroom of the newly opened American University of Iraq–Baghdad (Photo: Courtesy of the unive

Fifteen years ago, Iraq’s higher education infrastructure was in tatters. Two years into the US-led invasion, which began in 2003, 84 per cent of universities had been “burned, looted or destroyed”, according to a United Nations report. Many institutions still feel the impact of the conflict, enduring regular electrical outages and shortages of equipment, facilities and m

The number of students admitted to Iraqi law schools has soared in recent years, flooding the market withjob-hungry graduates. The intense competition forces them to work for a fraction of customary charges — if they can find work at all. According to the Student Guide for Central Admission in Iraqi Universities for the 2015-16 academic year, there are 19 public law