|
|
UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs |
IRAQ: Focus on unbiased textbooks for schools
BAGHDAD, 16 September 2003 (IRIN) - At Adnan Katan’s school in the Iraqi capital, the students can hardly wait to get their hands on new textbooks, especially in history and geography.
"The current textbooks have complicated stories put together by former President Saddam Hussein," 16-year old Katan, told IRIN in Baghdad.
"New textbooks will be more helpful, because they’ll give a more even-handed approach to history lessons such as the Iran-Iraq war and the Gulf War," he added.
“I will be confused for the first lesson, but then I’ll be able to read the way things happened,” he said joyfully. “I’ll be very happy to finally learn properly.” Many students were told by teachers in April to rip pictures of Hussein out of their textbooks as they contained propaganda related to the old regime which was used to try and brainwash children.
But changing the text, including any doctrine from the former regime, is a little more complicated. The United Nations has estimated that 55 million history and geography books need to be revised.
The old text books contained a picture of the fallen leader followed by a note from Hussein telling students that the Baath Party revolution of July 17, 1968 was a great thing, because it meant the government could supply books to the schools. Many history and geography textbooks talk about the Iran-Iraq war in extremely patriotic terms and Iranian people are cast as "yellow snakes" for example, for fighting against Iraq.
New maths and science textbooks, minus pictures of the former president and a speech from him, are being produced first.
Some 6.2 million new books are being printed by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). “There’s absolutely nothing in our books about shooting of infidels, or anything like that," project manager for UNESCO, Paul Gibbings, told IRIN in Baghdad.
But it will be a lenghty process. "It took us two months (to reprint some of the books). Can you imagine what it will take for the rest?”
A newly appointed interim minister of education is expected to give the final approval for any revisions of the history and geography books, which in the end could take months to revise.
Ahmed Chalabi, who holds the presidency of the newly appointed Iraq Governing Council, said recently that all textbooks should be “de-Baathified”.
The Baath party was part of Hussein’s regime. “We need to clean our country of 35 years of a fascist party and a dictatorial party built on racism and security divisions,” said Chalabi. “We want to put an end to this type of education.”
Teachers across the capital and the country such as Kaddesia Saddam, a 56-year-old history teacher at Katan’s school, are looking forward to working with the new books. "The first three chapters in the history book for 9th graders are fine. But the last two chapters have too many political subjects," she told IRIN.
She hoped the new books would be ready before she gets to those chapters, or else she may have to give the students a short vacation. “We have omitted these chapters because they have many political subjects - about Palestine and about our wars,” Saddam explained.
Just printing and distributing the maths and science textbooks in post-war Iraq has been a big challenge, according to Gibbings. "First, paper in warehouses had to be protected from looters and people who wanted to burn it," he said, adding that printers asked to do the job formed a union and set an artificially high price.
When UNESCO said it wanted to negotiate the price, the printers demonstrated in front of the office. After weeks of negotiations, the average cost of a soft-cover book is US $0.68 cents.
But making those problems seem small by comparison, a truck bomb at the United Nations headquarters on 19 August killed 23 people, including the United Nations special envoy to Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello. As a result, most UN staff were given a mandatory two-week leave from Iraq. Many have not been sent back.
In such an uncertain environment, all Gibbings wants to do is see the project through to its conclusion. He has hired a group of quality control experts to travel around the country to make sure the books reach their destinations.
Printers started printing the revised textbooks, 26 titles in all, on 2 September. Printing is expected to cost about US $5.3 million, which will be funded mostly by the United States Agency for International Development, (USAID). Books will be distributed to schools for another US $1.5 million.
Paper for the textbooks was already available as part of the UN Oil-for-Food Programme in which Saddam Hussein's government was allowed to sell some of the country’s oil in return for food and some materials and equipment.
The new textbooks will be distributed through the Oil-for-Food Programme’s extensive network. New books aren't the only reason to be excited, according to Sakis Wahi, aged 16. Teachers will also get more money to do their jobs, and many schools are being fixed up by US troops. “Teachers in the past received very little money,” he told IRIN. “Now, they’ll do better, which means they can teach me better,” he maintained.
Themes: (IRIN) Children
[ENDS]
This material comes to you via IRIN, a UN humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations or its agencies. If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post this item, please retain this credit and disclaimer. Quotations or extracts should include attribution to the original sources. All materials copyright © UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2003
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
