A Strategic Signpost
This is REALLY great news from Iraq. For all the focus on security operations we tend to forget that counterinsurgency depends on long-term stability. Schools bring literacy, literacy brings jobs, and jobs provide economic opportunity thus dissuading disillusioned men from turning to terror groups. This kind of news is in the same category as nailing Zarquawi and in some cases is even more important. Zarqawi was one man, these school will disuade thousands from becoming terrorist sympathizers. THINK MACRO PEOPLE!
Amid Iraqi Chaos, Schools Fill After Long Decline
By SABRINA TAVERNISE
The New York Times
BAGHDAD, Iraq, June 25 — Enrollment in Iraqi schools has risen every year since the American invasion, according to Iraqi government figures, reversing more than a decade of declines and offering evidence of increased prosperity for some Iraqis.
Despite the violence that has plagued Iraq since the American occupation began three years ago, its schools have been quietly filling. The number of children enrolled in schools nationwide rose by 7.4 percent from 2002 to 2005, and in middle schools and high schools by 27 percent in that time, according to figures from the Ministry of Education.
The increase, which has greatly outpaced modest population growth during the same period, is a bright spot in an otherwise gloomy landscape of bombs and killings that have shattered community life in many areas in western and central Iraq. And it is seen as an important indicator here in a country that used to pride itself on its education system, then saw enrollment and literacy fall during the later years of Saddam Hussein's rule.
Sorrows seep into the classrooms. During a chemistry exam at Hariri High School in Baghdad on Thursday morning, a random sample of students turned up one whose father had been killed three days before, another whose uncle had been killed in an American-led raid and yet another whose family was leaving Iraq for good once she finished. The official who helped prepare the statistics for this article was assassinated this month.
But while life in Baghdad grows more paralyzed — it was the only province in the country where primary school enrollment fell — the figures for the rest of Iraq show that everyday life goes on, particularly in the largely peaceful south, which experienced the biggest jumps, with some regions having above 40 percent enrollment increases since 2002.
Full article here. (Free subscription required)
Amid Iraqi Chaos, Schools Fill After Long Decline
By SABRINA TAVERNISE
The New York Times
BAGHDAD, Iraq, June 25 — Enrollment in Iraqi schools has risen every year since the American invasion, according to Iraqi government figures, reversing more than a decade of declines and offering evidence of increased prosperity for some Iraqis.
Despite the violence that has plagued Iraq since the American occupation began three years ago, its schools have been quietly filling. The number of children enrolled in schools nationwide rose by 7.4 percent from 2002 to 2005, and in middle schools and high schools by 27 percent in that time, according to figures from the Ministry of Education.
The increase, which has greatly outpaced modest population growth during the same period, is a bright spot in an otherwise gloomy landscape of bombs and killings that have shattered community life in many areas in western and central Iraq. And it is seen as an important indicator here in a country that used to pride itself on its education system, then saw enrollment and literacy fall during the later years of Saddam Hussein's rule.
Sorrows seep into the classrooms. During a chemistry exam at Hariri High School in Baghdad on Thursday morning, a random sample of students turned up one whose father had been killed three days before, another whose uncle had been killed in an American-led raid and yet another whose family was leaving Iraq for good once she finished. The official who helped prepare the statistics for this article was assassinated this month.
But while life in Baghdad grows more paralyzed — it was the only province in the country where primary school enrollment fell — the figures for the rest of Iraq show that everyday life goes on, particularly in the largely peaceful south, which experienced the biggest jumps, with some regions having above 40 percent enrollment increases since 2002.
Full article here. (Free subscription required)
posted by Will at 5:54 AM
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