Team Infidel
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Miami Herald
December 12, 2007 Aid workers in Syria and Jordan reported that illiteracy is increasing among Iraq's thousands of refugee children.
By Hannah Allam, McClatchy News Service
DAMASCUS, Syria -- Illiteracy is spreading rapidly among refugee children from Iraq, with at least 300,000 young Iraqis not attending school in the countries where their families have sought safety.
Alarmed aid workers in Syria and Jordan report that a growing number of children can't read or write because cash-strapped parents have withdrawn them from school to cut down on expenses. In many cases, displaced families can afford to send only one of their children to school, creating a painful gap between educated children and their illiterate siblings, humanitarian workers say.
UNICEF, the United Nations' education agency, is beginning a census to determine the size of the problem. There is no program in place yet to deal broadly with the issue. Aid workers admit that the development surprised them, in part, because Iraq once boasted some of the highest literacy rates in the Middle East. The Iraqis' legendary thirst for knowledge is encapsulated in an Arabic saying, ``The Egyptians write, the Lebanese publish, the Iraqis read.''
''We are finding that a lot of participants in the youth programs we're running -- a very high number, sometimes up to 30 percent per class -- are illiterate or close to illiterate,'' said Jason Erb, the deputy country director for emergency programs in the Jordan office of Save the Children. He said that more than 90,000 Iraqi children were out of school in Jordan.
''In the initial rounds of some of our programs, we expected children to read and write, so we'd have all these activities that involved writing things on the flip chart or having them read a case history,'' Erb said. ``They couldn't do it.''
Iraqi teachers and professors in Damascus have begun offering free remedial lessons so Iraqi children make up for years lost to war, but they're finding far more students than they can accommodate. In Syria, about 250,000 Iraqi children, or 76 percent of the school-age Iraqi population in the country, are out of class this year, according to the United Nations refugee agency.
''The last time my kids were in school was 2003, right before the American invasion,'' said Hanaa Majeed, 32, an Iraqi refugee in Damascus who can't afford to send her two sons to school. ``They can barely read. I buy books and try to teach them at home, but it's not the same. My boys see other kids with backpacks on, going off to school, and they ask why they can't go, too.''
Even refugee children who are enrolled in school struggle to keep up with unfamiliar Arabic dialects, aid workers said. The trauma of being forcibly uprooted from their homes and neighborhoods in Iraq also diminishes their ability to learn.
''A whole generation is missing out on its education,'' said Sybella Wilkes, the Damascus-based U.N. spokeswoman on refugee issues. ``Nothing has prepared Iraqis for being refugees, for running out of savings. For the first time in a generation or longer, the priority is basic survival.''
''I have a 13-year-old who can't read or write,'' said Azhar al Haidari, 47, an Iraqi who can afford to send only two of her four children to school in Damascus. ``It destroys me. He needs to start from A-B-C, but he's too embarrassed. He says he's too old to learn now.''
December 12, 2007 Aid workers in Syria and Jordan reported that illiteracy is increasing among Iraq's thousands of refugee children.
By Hannah Allam, McClatchy News Service
DAMASCUS, Syria -- Illiteracy is spreading rapidly among refugee children from Iraq, with at least 300,000 young Iraqis not attending school in the countries where their families have sought safety.
Alarmed aid workers in Syria and Jordan report that a growing number of children can't read or write because cash-strapped parents have withdrawn them from school to cut down on expenses. In many cases, displaced families can afford to send only one of their children to school, creating a painful gap between educated children and their illiterate siblings, humanitarian workers say.
UNICEF, the United Nations' education agency, is beginning a census to determine the size of the problem. There is no program in place yet to deal broadly with the issue. Aid workers admit that the development surprised them, in part, because Iraq once boasted some of the highest literacy rates in the Middle East. The Iraqis' legendary thirst for knowledge is encapsulated in an Arabic saying, ``The Egyptians write, the Lebanese publish, the Iraqis read.''
''We are finding that a lot of participants in the youth programs we're running -- a very high number, sometimes up to 30 percent per class -- are illiterate or close to illiterate,'' said Jason Erb, the deputy country director for emergency programs in the Jordan office of Save the Children. He said that more than 90,000 Iraqi children were out of school in Jordan.
''In the initial rounds of some of our programs, we expected children to read and write, so we'd have all these activities that involved writing things on the flip chart or having them read a case history,'' Erb said. ``They couldn't do it.''
Iraqi teachers and professors in Damascus have begun offering free remedial lessons so Iraqi children make up for years lost to war, but they're finding far more students than they can accommodate. In Syria, about 250,000 Iraqi children, or 76 percent of the school-age Iraqi population in the country, are out of class this year, according to the United Nations refugee agency.
''The last time my kids were in school was 2003, right before the American invasion,'' said Hanaa Majeed, 32, an Iraqi refugee in Damascus who can't afford to send her two sons to school. ``They can barely read. I buy books and try to teach them at home, but it's not the same. My boys see other kids with backpacks on, going off to school, and they ask why they can't go, too.''
Even refugee children who are enrolled in school struggle to keep up with unfamiliar Arabic dialects, aid workers said. The trauma of being forcibly uprooted from their homes and neighborhoods in Iraq also diminishes their ability to learn.
''A whole generation is missing out on its education,'' said Sybella Wilkes, the Damascus-based U.N. spokeswoman on refugee issues. ``Nothing has prepared Iraqis for being refugees, for running out of savings. For the first time in a generation or longer, the priority is basic survival.''
''I have a 13-year-old who can't read or write,'' said Azhar al Haidari, 47, an Iraqi who can afford to send only two of her four children to school in Damascus. ``It destroys me. He needs to start from A-B-C, but he's too embarrassed. He says he's too old to learn now.''