ICSIA

ASWAT AL IRAQ

October 14, 2008 - 07:42:52

BAGHDAD / Aswat al-Iraq: The state of education in Iraq, and the threats facing Iraqi children, students and academics will be the subject of an international conference “Right to Education in Crisis-Affected Countries: Stop jeopardizing the future of Iraq,” at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris from 30 October to 1 November, UNESCO said in a statement on Tuesday.

“The conference is organized by UNESCO’s Iraq Office in close cooperation with the Office of Her Highness Sheikha Mozah Bint Nasser Al-Missned, UNESCO Special Envoy for Basic and Higher Education, who has extended her patronage for the event,” said the statement received by Aswat al-Iraq.
Involving the cooperation of the International Committee for the Protection of Iraqi Academics, the event will be opened by the Director-General of UNESCO, Koïchiro Matsuura, in the presence of Iraqi Minister of Education, Dr. Khudair Al-Khuza’I; Dr. Abed Thiyab Al-Ujaili, the Iraqi Minister of Higher Education and a number of ministers and members of parliament from the region.
“The conference will bring together around 150 participants including Iraqi educators and students, university rectors and academics, experts, donors, representatives of international organizations, NGOs and specialists in human rights, international and humanitarian law, as well as international and regional media professionals,” it added.

“The participants will examine the legal framework of the right to education in conflict situations, the media’s role in advocating that right, humanitarian responses and post-conflict reconstruction in the education sector,” the statement noted.

“The Conference will focus on five themes identified as priorities: access to quality basic education; protection of Iraqi intellectuals, academics, teachers, students and educational institutions; issues facing Iraqi universities; educational issues facing displaced persons in Iraq and the implications of internal displacement for the Iraqi education system; educational issues facing refugees in neighbouring countries and their implications for education in Iraq,” it said.

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“Stop jeopardizing the future of Iraq”

Your Highness,
Mr Boutros Boutros Ghali,
Honourable Ministers,
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Let me begin by extending a very warm welcome to our special guests: Her Highness Sheikha Mozah Bint Nasser Al-Missned, Chairperson of the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development and UNESCO
Special Envoy for Basic and Higher Education. Thank you very much for joining us for this closing ceremony. Read the rest of ‘Address by Mr Koïchiro Matsuura, Director-General of UNESCO’ »

Background

As recognized by the humanitarian community and enshrined in the principles of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) Education Cluster, “education is an important sector within humanitarian response due to the role it plays in providing physical, psychosocial and cognitive protection to children, adolescents and youth affected and made more vulnerable by crisis; disseminating life-saving messages about environmental and health risks; and facilitating a return to normalcy and overall stability for children, as well as families and communities.” Assistance to education also is a key factor in efforts at early recovery, as educational services and infrastructure are often severely impacted in situations of crisis.

It is thus necessary to think about strategies that guarantee protection for the education systems in case of crisis.

Within the framework of the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 2 which calls for universal primary education related to education and the Education for All (EFA) objectives; and further to the establishment of the International Fund for the Higher Education in Iraq in 2003 through a $15 million (USD) donation by Her Highness Sheikha Mozah Bint Nasser Al-Missned, First Lady of Qatar, to move towards a more concentrated international focus on the education issues facing Iraq, UNESCO is planning to organize an International Conference under the Patronage of Her Highness and the collaboration of the International committee for the Protection of Iraqi academics.

During the UNESCO conference on literacy challenges in the Arab Region (March 2007), Her Highness said we cannot stand as spectators and that solidarity should be the best support to the Iraqi education system, which was a model and whcich needs from all us a solid support in order to continue to play the same role it has played.

Following the war of 2003 and the terrible violence which engulfed the country, education in Iraq has deteriorated to a critical point. The country currently faces a marked decline in quality and access to education; 22% of Iraqi children are not attending school; especially girls (Save the Children, March 2007¹) and much of the educational infrastructure across the country remains damaged and in poor condition. Read the rest of ‘Stop jeopardizing the future of Iraq international conference’ »

1. We have visited Iraqi universities in Baghdad.

2. We have caught the attention of the international opinion: La Libre Belgique, Liberazione, Science, Le Temps and Le Monde published the international appeal that was signed by 150 Iraqi academic personalities.

3. A campaign for solidarity was launched on Arab and French radios and television.

4. We met with the Director-General of Unesco twice; he wrote a communiqué condemning the situation of Iraqi academics

5. We went to New York and met with the person in charge of the Iraqi Desk, that of Unicef, and that of Unesco in the United Nations headquarters.

6. We went to Cairo and met with the union of Egyptian journalists.

7. We met with the academic personnel at Columbia University to talk about Iraqis.

8. We met with the Ambassador to the Iraqi Republic in Washington.

9. We had a meeting at the Qatar Foundation in Doha and met with the spokespeople of Iraqi academics to make a plan of action.

10. We plan on buying a house to accommodate Iraqi professors who have lost their own. Read the rest of ‘Undertaken steps and projects’ »

More than 200 academics were assassinated in Iraq

Since 2003, Iraq has seen its victims increase endlessly. Each year, more than 100 scientists and academics pay of their life their involvement in favor of the knowledge and the culture. In front of the deterioration of the security situation which caused kidnappings, assassination of several hundreds of Iraqi academics and the forced exile of hundreds of Iraqi intellectuals, leaving the country deprived of its main resources, we call the Iraqi authorities, the multinational forces and all the actors involved to take all necessary measures to ensure the protection and the defense of Iraqi scientists and academics. We recall to the international community its international commitments to the respect of fundamental freedoms.

International Committee for the Protection of the Iraqi Academics
Hasni Abidi. Director of Geneva Center for Study and Research on the Arab and Mediterranean World (CERMAM)
Kais Al Azzawi. Director of the Iraqi Observatory, Bagdad
Prof Victoria Curzon Price, University of Geneva

Please return signatures to sali_djebbari@yahoo.fr Read the rest of ‘International call for the protection and the defense of the Iraqi academics’ »