BAGHDAD, 18 October (IRIN) - Thousands of students have been forced to stay at home due to escalating violence across the country.
Attendance rates for the new school year, which started on 20 September, are a record low, according to the Ministry of Education. Recently released statistics from the Ministry indicate that only
30 percent of Iraq's 3.5 million students are currently attending classes. This compares to approximately 75 percent of students attending classes the previous year, according to UK-based NGO Save the
Children."Last year I had nearly 80 students in my class. Today, there are less than 25. Families are keeping their children safe at home, waiting to see how violence will spread, particularly
after many schools were targeted countrywide," said Hiba Addel Lattef, a teacher and coordinator at Mansour Primary School in the capital, Baghdad."Education [levels are] deteriorating as a result
of violence," Lattef added.According to the Ministry of Education, 2006 is the worst year for school attendance since US-led coalition forces invaded Iraq in 2003. The immediate post-war level of
attendance in 2003 was almost 100 percent.Ali al-Ka'abi, public officer at the Ministry of Education, said the problem is worse in the capital and in cities of the western Anbar Governorate, where
up to 30 percent of schools are being used by US and Iraqi troops.School attendance is lowest in the Baghdad districts of Mansur, Amiriyah, Ghazeliyah, Keir, Adhamiyah and Resaffa where sectarian
violence is rife. Other cities plagued by violence - such as Ramadi and Fallujah just west of Baghdad, Diyala in the northeast and Kirkuk in the north - have also registered very low attendance rates.According to Faleh Hassan al-Quraishy, an official in the Ministry of Education, threats from insurgents have forced the government to close around 420 of the country's 16,500 public schools. He
added that 310 teachers had been killed and 160 injured over the past year."Terrorists are targeting the educational system to confuse the development [of the country] by killing teachers and
bombing schools to [create] panic among children and prevent their school attendance," al-Quraishy said."Insurgents have bombed many primary schools in Baghdad and other provinces with mortars,
causing the death of at least three children since January," he added.In response to the worryingly low attendance rates, the Ministry of Education has urged the Ministry of Interior to boost
security at the main gates of schools.as/sz/ed
