The 2003 de-Baathification law led to the expulsion of thousands of teachers and university professors who had been members of the Baath Party. The murder of the president of Baghdad University only days after the approval of this law also served as an omen. Over the next years, the de-Baathification law was invoked by competing local militias and political factions to violently establish control over education.
Things got worse in 2014, with the rapid advancement of the Islamic State (IS). IS captured several major state universities, including the University of Mosul, the country’s second largest, and proceeded to burn thousands of books, cancel courses and burn buildings to the ground.
Although no conclusive figures exist, it is estimated that hundreds of Iraqi university staff and faculty were assassinated over the past decade. The local militias that controlled campuses forced female students and academics to wear the hijab. As armed gangs demanded institutions approve their degrees no matter what, the accreditation system lost much of its remaining significance.
While few reliable statistics for higher education exist, one that throws light on Iraq’s unfolding educational disaster is the literacy rate. According to UNESCO data, around 3.2 million of the total population of youths aged 15-24 years old were illiterate in 2013 — an increase of approximately 2.4 million individuals since 2000. Only half of Iraq’s youth can read or write nowadays, down from almost 85% in 2000.
The collapse of state provision in education has led to a sprawling private university industry. Part of the new politics of education is the boom in the construction of private Shiite-oriented colleges, such as Ahl al-Bayt University in Najaf, which teaches the sort of Islamic sciences and law restricted previously by the Baathist regime.
Iraq must look for Western Education System, Iranian Education System is very poor and full with sectarian and religious ideology. This is not suitable for modern Iraq.