News

Niran Al-Salihi is a chemistry professor in Iraq, and while years of war and violence have emptied most classrooms of books and basic equipment, students keep coming to her to learn.

”It isn't easy, we are suffering. But despite of all these things, the people they come,” said the 52-year-old, who teaches at the University of Basrah in southern Iraq. ”The people want to live, to study, to be like everybody in all the world.”

In an attempt to help rebuild her country's devastated educational system, UNESCO, the United Nations' culture agency, has sent Prof. Al-Salihi and 13 other Iraqi professors to the University of Alberta this month to learn from the school's education experts.

The Edmonton-based institution was the only university in North America chosen to participate in the new program called the Teacher Training Network for Iraq, which is partly funded by the Iraqi government.

During their 23-day stay, which began Oct. 30, the chemistry and biology professors are being taught numerous skills, including how to design instructional packages and modernize their outdated curriculums. The goal is for them to return to Iraq and teach other teachers.

”We must build the minds of all Iraqis,” said participant Mustafa Al-Attar. The 36-year-old heads the scientific affairs department at Salahaddin University in northern Iraq.

While northern Iraq is more stable than its central and southern parts, Prof. Al-Attar said change will still come slowly. He estimated it could take at least 10 years before the country's education system, which is free at all levels, is rebuilt and modernized.

The lack of buildings, books and equipment such as chemicals and microscopes isn't the only hurdle. So is the ongoing deadly violence fuelled by sectarian and ethnic conflicts. Iraq has one of the worst records for school attacks in the world.

The Iraqi government estimates that more than 200 university professors have been killed since the U.S.-led invasion began in March, 2003.

Dozens more have either been kidnapped or fled the country. Many militants view university campuses as centres of non-Islamic thought and routinely target them.

George Richardson, an associate dean with the UofA's faculty of education, said his school was chosen in September, 2006, to participate in the UNESCO program partly because of its previous work in developing and post-conflict countries such as Bosnia.

He said it quickly became real to him how dangerous Iraq still is after a planning meeting in Amman, Jordan, had to be postponed last December after some Iraqi government officials who were supposed to attend had been kidnapped. They were subsequently released.

Prof. Richardson said he's inspired by the bravery and optimism of the visiting professors, who, when they weren't in the classroom, were checking out local tourist attractions such as the West Edmonton Mall.

”They see the incremental nature of this, and they are hopeful,” he explained. ”We were kind of worried people would get here and be so traumatized by everything from their life in Iraq to just trying to get here.”

Prof. Richardson said he's also learned much from the university's guests. ”We have found we had much to talk about ... that the openness, the curiosity and kind of intellectual life that goes along with being a scholar cuts across everything.”