Al-Monitor | Zep Kalb: In the aftermath of the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, the country's�educational system all but collapsed. Illiteracy rates have exploded. Universities have turned into sectarian battlegrounds. Systemic violence � including beatings, rape and death threats � has forced students and faculty out of campuses. As state provision of higher education has receded, private donors have set up alternative institutions, often with a sectarian and religious twist. Foreign actors have also stepped in to fill the void.


Before the US-led invasion, education indicators in oil-rich, Baathist-controlled Iraq improved similarly as in other middle-income countries, and in several ways even more so. The country�s first university, Baghdad University, opened its doors in 1957. In 1968, the government made education�free and compulsory at all levels. In 1977, the eradication of illiteracy was made legally binding. The developmental push appeared to be working. By 1980, Iraq had already achieved�near universal primary school enrollment.

Saddam Hussein�s devastating eight-year war with Iran in the 1980s and the sanctions imposed by the West over his invasion of Kuwait in the 1990s�slowed these gains.

By 2000, the literacy rate of youth aged 15-24 years old stood at�84.8%, slightly higher than that of regional neighbor Egypt. The gender gap was also narrowing: Female literacy rates stood at 80.5% in 2000, a figure Egypt reached only in 2006. At the same time, underinvestment in education by a cash-strapped government led to an aged and creaking infrastructure.

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