Kurdish students in Tikrit for their lives

Studying in Tikrit like “going to a war zone,” says one student

Kurdish students in other parts of Iraq demand a return to universities in Kurdistan Region.

Three weeks after Kurdish student Bayar Tahir Ismail was accepted into the College of Engineering at Tikrit University in Tikrit city in northern Iraq, a car bomb exploded 300 meters away from his classroom. “I was sitting in my classroom, and suddenly I heard an explosion that shook the classroom. I told myself I have made the wrong decision to study here,” said 29-year-old Ismail.

In 2008, the Kurdistan Region and Baghdad ministries of Higher Education signed a coordination agreement that every year a number of students in Kurdistan Region can study medicine and engineering in universities in middle and southern Iraq. The agreement came after a number of high school graduates in Kurdistan Region earned grades above 90 percent; but they were not accepted in the medicine and engineering colleges in Kurdistan since these colleges were already filled with students who had better grades.

Ismail was accepted into the College of Education in Erbil city in 2008, but because he had good grades and his desire was to study engineering, he decided to go to Tikrit, Saddam Hussein’s home city, to study. He finished his first year at Tikrit University, but instead of talking about engineering and his studies, he reflected only on the suffering he has endured in the past year.

“We [Kurdish and Arab students] live in a very dirty and old dormitory provided by Tikrit University. We drink water from the Tigris River, which is contaminated,” he said. “But still, my main concern is security. I go to market once a week because insurgents target crowded places.”

Speaking about his first year, he continued: “I was sitting in my dormitory studying for the final, and a car bomb targeting a police station exploded near my dormitory. Just imagine trying to study in this situation.” Ismail said lack of freedom also makes him want to return to the Region to study. He told about New Year’s Eve, when they wanted to dance and celebrate. When they took to the dormitory balcony for celebrations, dormitory guards shot around 15 bullets on the air, warning them not to celebrate or make any noise.

Currently for about eight days now, some 35 Kurdish students studying in other parts of Iraq have been demonstrating and striking in front of the Kurdistan Region Ministry of Higher Education and Oarliament, seeking return to regional universities.

“It is dangerous and risky for us to study in the universities in other parts of Iraq,” said Yassin Abdullah, student representative. Abdullah said a Kurdish student from Halabja city studying in Anbar University near Baghdad was kidnapped last year and later released after his family paid US$30,000 in ransom. Abdullah studies as Mosul University; he is under a lot of pressure from his parents to return.

The Kurdistan Ministry of Higher Education told students that it does not have the ability to incorporate them into Kurdistan Region universities since the universities are overcrowded. Moreover, the ministry remarked that these students signed conformity with the ministry, promising not to ask to be returned to Kurdistan Region universities.

The students admit the agreement. “We admit that there is an agreement between us and the ministry; we promised not to ask to be returned to the universities in Kurdistan Region. But we did not know our lives would be in danger by studying in other Iraqi cities.”

Omer Nuradini, member of Kurdistan Parliament of Higher Education Committee, told “The Kurdish Globe” that Parliament is working hard to solve the problem. “…Our committee sat down with the ministry more than five times to solve the issue. However I don’t think the ministry is able to solve it because its universities are overcrowded with students,” said Nuradini.

He added that this year high school graduates who want to attend government universities and institutes also will not be able to be incorporated. Their only options are to study in private universities in the region or in universities in other Iraqi cities.

Private universities take on more importance to the region as government universities become unable to accept all graduating high school students. Currently, there are nine private universities in Kurdistan Region; all of them have opened in the past three years and, according to the Ministry of Higher Education in the region, next year two more private universities will open.

Last year, 33,000 students graduated from high school. But the government university was only able to accept 25,000 students, said Dr. Abdul Gahar. "Now, 7,000 students are studying in private universities in the region." Ismail said if the ministry does not bring him back to the universities in Kurdistan Region, he will not continue studying. “If Tikrit were safe I would love to study there; you learn good engineering science as well as Arabic language. But going there is like going to a war zone--you feel you will get killed any minute.”