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UNICEF: Sanctions Hurt Iraq Schools
Thursday, December 10, 1998; 4:49 p.m. EST
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Nearly half of Iraqi schoolchildren do
not have desks in their classrooms and enrollment rates at Iraqi
schools have dropped dramatically as a result of U.N. sanctions, a
UNICEF official said Thursday.
Philippe Heffinck, the agency's representative in Baghdad, said
4,520 schools need extensive rehabilitation and the number of
teachers in Iraq is declining by 10 percent every year.
``There has been a steady deterioration over the past eight years of
education in the country,'' he told a news conference. ``To reverse
that trend, it's going to require massive investment.''
Heffinck cited government figures that say 1 million Iraqi students
-- 20 percent of the total -- did not enroll this year. About 47
percent of students do not have desks in their classrooms.
Iraq's education budget fell from $500 million before the 1991 Gulf
War to less than 10 percent of that today.
The United Nations imposed sanctions on Iraq after it invaded
Kuwait in 1990. The sanctions, which include an oil embargo, can
only be lifted once U.N. inspectors certify that Iraq's weapons of
mass destruction have been eliminated.
Before the sanctions, Iraq had one of the highest literacy rates in the
Arab world.
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