SEPTEMBER 2023

CULTURE & HISTORY
Instruction in Iraq
A story of schools
BY ADHID MIRI, PHD
Schools tell us a great deal about
our history. Within them, we
celebrate memories, principals,
teachers, students, parents, friends, uniforms,
events, and the building itself.
Once upon a time, Iraq had a wellfunctioning
British-style education
system, consisting of primary and secondary
schools and eight tertiary institutions,
including a well-regarded
medical school in Baghdad and one of
the oldest Islamic universities on Earth,
Mustansiriya University, dating from
the year 1233. Seriously damaged during
military occupations and by rioting
students in 2007, the university suffered
trauma from which it is still recovering.
In the 1970s, Iraq had one of the
finest education systems in the world,
approaching 100% literacy; however,
a sequence of wars and sanctions left
it severely damaged. Since 2003, 84%
of the infrastructure in Iraqi higher education
institutions have been burnt,
looted, or damaged in some form.
War, political instability, deteriorating
safety conditions, and a lack of
high-quality study options in Iraq have
been student challenges over the past
decades. Assassinations and the ongoing
militia threats have affected hundreds
of Iraqi teachers and academics
and represent the sad situation in Iraq.
There is also conflict between fundamentalist
religion and the concept of
free and open education for all. While
this continues, children suffer. The situation
is particularly depressing among
primary school-age girls in poor areas.
Iraq’s educational system is in
ruins and in need of reconstruction.
Among the many challenges facing
the citizens are the creation of a new
education system.
History
During the royal period of Iraqi history,
education led to significant developments
and new horizons opened in
terms of primary, secondary, and preparatory
schools, female schools, Jewish
schools, Christian schools, private
as well as foreign schools, and special
Students, teachers, director, and founder of the American Elementary School in old Baghdad. Seated in the middle is
the first principal of the school, Yousif Mary (Miri), and on his right, the founder of the American School for Boys, Rev.
Calvin Staudt, PhD.
schools for craftsmanship.
The Carmelite Catholic Mission was
active in Baghdad in the early eighteenth
century, and they established a
small religious school attached to the
Latin Church in 1721. Its founder was
the French priest, Emmanuel Baillet.
The school taught the principles of
reading and writing along with morals,
discipline, religious education,
and church rites. It eventually separated
from the church, and in 1737,
began working according to “modern”
European education systems under
the name Saint Joseph School. It introduced
to the school curriculum modern
sciences and the languages Arabic,
French and a little Turkish.
In 1859, it became St. Joseph High
School. It had 20% non-Christian students
— children from affluent families
who enrolled to learn English and
French. The Iraqi government seized
the school when nationalizing private
schools after the Baath coup in
1968 and the name was changed to Al-
Makasib School.
The Ottomans rulers of Iraq gave
Christian and Jews a freedom to start
private schools if they were supervised
by the local education management
authority. Between 1805 and
1879, there were 24 Christian schools
throughout Iraq.
In 1850, two Jesuits were sent from
Beirut to Baghdad to determine if the
time was right for a Jesuit mission
there. Their caravan was robbed on
the way to and from Baghdad; consequently,
they decided that the time for
a mission there had not yet arrived.
Considered one of the earliest Jewish
schools in Iraq, The Alliance was
founded in 1864 and funded by Barron
Rothchild. Its student body was made
of Muslim, Christian, and Jewish youth,
and classes focused on teaching Jewish
religious texts with specific focus on the
Talmud and the Torah. It taught English
and French as secondary languages in
addition to Arabic, Hebrew, history,
geography, sciences, chemistry, and
biology. In the first semester of its first
year (1864-1865) it had 43 students; by
midterm the number jumped to 75.
In 1873, the first batch of the French
Dominican Sisters of the Presentation
came to the city of Mosul and opened
an elementary school for girls. In 1880,
they came to Baghdad and founded
the first monastery in the old Christian
district neighborhood, Aqd al-Nasara.
They opened the Central School, then
another school in the eastern gate (Bab
Al-Shargey) area, and another in the
eastern Karrada (Karrada Al-Sharqiya).
32 CHALDEAN NEWS SEPTEMBER 2023