Information Center for Research and Development and Mashofna Cultural Center organized a seminar on private education (private schools) and its impact on the governmental education system in the governorate in Dhi Qar. Chairman of the Education Committee in the City Council  Shahid Al-Ghalibi and a number of civilian activists and educators. The purpose of the symposium is to discuss the impact of private education on government education, and whether enriched and added to the educational sector of government or damaged and detract from it!

The discussions dealt with important questions in the educational area, most notably whether private education can be a substitute for the year in light of the transformation of many of the important teaching staff from the public schools to private schools, which negatively affect the education sector, which suffers from many problems, ” private education was adopted to help the government education in parallel tracks, but what happened is that it started to rise at the expense of the latter and this is unacceptable,”  said Shahid al-Ghalibi and added, “The government education suffers mainly from several problems, notably the infrastructure crumbling and overcrowded Students “70 to 60 students in each class” The crisis in government education extends to the lack of educational and teaching staff, specialties, school buildings, and the problem of mud schools with the need for 750 new buildings, so the crisis is intractable and the state has turned its back on education until it gradually receded. “

The symposium came out with a number of recommendations, as the following:

– Private education is supportive to government education and cannot be substituted for it.

– The necessity of activating the penalty of closure against the private schools that have not achieved success rates and provide independent statistics on the results of private schools.

– Controlling the profit rush of investors and the wages to reduce the class differences promoted by the civil schools in the community.

–  Activate the supervisory role in these schools.

 Regarding the teaching staff in private schools, the Directorate of Education must issue administrative orders to appoint cadres from graduates and it must also protect the rights of these cadres and provide wage compatibility and minimum wage for the same those who work in the public sector.

The symposium is part of a large project entitled “Youth of Mesopotamia for Democratic Governance and Peaceful Coexistence”, which is implemented by the Information Center for Research and Development within the space of the Iraqi Social Forum, the The Iraqi Civil Society Solidarity InAitiative, the Italian Organizations Bridge to.. with the support of the European Union.

Nasir Baqer

Iraqi Social Forum