One Iraqi institution gets a passing grade: Schools

Enrollment in Iraqi schools has risen every year since the U.S.-led 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 U.S.-led occupation began three years ago, schools have been quietly filling. The number of children enrolled 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 parts of Iraq. And it is seen as an important indicator in a country that used to pride itself on its education system but that saw enrollment and literacy fall during the later years of Saddam Hussein's rule. Still, 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 in early June. 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. "There is a considerable increase in the number of students," said Majid al- Sudanie, an official in the Education Directorate in Najaf. "This province needs more than 400 schools to accommodate the growing number of students." It is a complex phenomenon. Increases in some places, for example, are being driven by bad news: among the biggest increases in secondary and high school enrollment, some were in provinces that have received families who are fleeing the violence of Baghdad and its dangerous outskirts, including Babylon, with a 44 percent rise in enrollment; Najaf, with 35 percent; and Kirkuk, with 37 percent. But the growth is too broad to be explained only by migration patterns. According to U.S. government estimates, Iraq's population grew by about 8 percent to 26 million from 2002 to 2005. And even in provinces that have experienced declines in population, school enrollment is up. In Anbar Province, in the west of Iraq, where insurgents regularly battle U.S. soldiers causing residents to flee, enrollment in primary school is up by 15 percent, and in secondary and high school it is up by 37 percent. Economics is driving much of the rise, officials say. Public sector employees, who make up almost half the work force in Iraq, according to the Ministry of Planning, used to collect the equivalent of several dollars every month under Saddam. Now, Iraq's oil revenue has been earmarked for salaries instead of wars, and millions of Iraqis - doctors, engineers, teachers, soldiers - began to earn several hundred dollars a month. Income from oil covers more than 90 percent of the government's spending, officials say. American money finances investment and reconstruction projects, but no current costs, like salaries. "Fathers can provide food for their families," said Abdul Zahra al-Yasseri, a teacher in Karbala in southern Iraq. "Kids don't have to work to help their parents anymore." While some parents have held their children out of schools at times over safety fears, especially in parts of Baghdad, direct attacks on schools have been relatively rare, allowing the school year to continue without major interruption in some parts of the country. The largest change among Iraq's approximately five million schoolchildren was in secondary schools and high schools, the equivalent of seventh through 12th grade in Iraq, where numbers of enrolled students rose to 1.4 million in 2005 from 1.1 million in 2002. Primary school enrollment rose to 3.7 million from 3.5 million. The numbers do not include the students in the northern Kurdish region, which is administratively separate. High school enrollment increased more for girls than for boys, while boys made bigger gains in primary school - in Iraq, first grade through sixth grade. In many ways, the increase is a measure of how far Iraq had fallen. Iraq was one of the most educated countries in the Middle East in the 1970s. Many Iraqis traveled abroad to study. But enrollment began to fall significantly in the 1980s, toward the end of the Iran-Iraq war, and only worsened during the period of international economic penalties that were imposed after Saddam invaded Kuwait in 1990. By 2000, only 33 percent of Iraqis of high school age were enrolled, compared with 75 percent in Jordan, according to Unesco figures published in a 2004 report by Iraq's Ministry of Education. The overall enrollment rate appears to have risen since then, according to the best estimates available. Unicef estimated that in 2004, about 50 percent of all school-age Iraqi boys and 35 percent of school-age girls were enrolled. Teachers and administrators in four Iraqi cities said their classrooms were more full than they had ever been. "We emptied the storage rooms and use them as classes," said Raya Faid Allah, a primary school teacher in Mosul, who said some classes had reached 75 students. "I am afraid that next year we will have to use the teachers' room and the principal's room." Sahar Nageeb contributed reporting for this article from Baghdad, and Iraqi employees of The New York Times contributed from Mosul, Karbala and Najaf.