Iraqi State Education Increasingly Religious

There are dozens of religious schools in Iraq, such as the Imam Hussein Institute in New Baghdad, the Sheikh al-Tusi University College in Najaf, the University of Ahl al-Bayt in Karbala and the Islamic University College in Babil and Najaf, all of which follow a Shiite curriculum. And there are dozens of schools affiliated with the Sunni endowment.

Ali Hassan, a researcher at Sheikh al-Tusi University College, told Al-Monitor, “Religious schools in Iraq are nothing new. They used to be scarce, before they really spread after 2003.”

Activist and lawyer Umm Sana al-Hayyali told Al-Monitor, “The curricula of religious schools focus on sectarian beliefs” calling for “the abolition of all non-state schools and the formation of committees to supervise the curricula.”

Hamza al-Krishi, an academic at Babil University, acknowledged to Al-Monitor, “The competition rages between the religious and state approaches to education, because the person with a religious education has an Islamic approach that contradicts the state curriculum, which may contravene Islamic regulations. So they end up colliding.”

Krishi also pointed out, “The religious education dilemma, generally in countries fighting a sectarian conflict, form the citizens’ identity, making them prone to sectarian violence.”

In an interview with Al-Monitor, writer and reporter Nassar al-Kriti called for “subjecting education to strict and centralized management so as to avoid the emergence of different curricula and means of [education].”

Kriti believes, “The emergence of institutes and schools with a religious orientation and others with secular trends creates chaos in the administration and sectarian differences in the curriculum.”

Kriti agrees with writer and journalist Riad al-Gharib, who told Al-Monitor, “Since 2003, religious thought has been seeking to dominate the educational system, which is trying hard, through its curricula, to be balanced and convincing to those who control the political power.”

There is no doubt that education in Iraq has become a means of consolidating sectarian identities. Although the official curriculum is supposed to be the same throughout Iraq, it is subject to various agendas, interpretation and analysis, each according to different sectarian, political and religious inclinations.