UN identifies 'several gaps' in schools for displaced children in Iraq

As the school year has drawn to a close in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region, the United Nations is reporting “several gaps” in education being provided to the nation’s children living in displacement camps.

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – As the school year has drawn to a close in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region, the United Nations is reporting “several gaps” in education being provided to the nation’s children living in displacement camps.

The shortcomings, at camps in the provinces of Kirkuk, Nineveh, Sulaimani, and Duhok, are widespread, according to a statement released by the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA).

Many are the result of inadequate funding, but other issues also persist.

“In Kirkuk, humanitarians are discussing how to address high rates of student dropouts,” read a UNOCHA statement. “The provincial Directorate of Education had observed an elevated dropout rates in neighborhoods with a substantial concentration of IDP families.”

In Ninewa, aid organizations working with the UN have phased out informal education projects in the camps due to budget shortfalls.

In the Kurdistan Region’s province of Sulaimani, “the provincial Directorate of Education recently advised the Education Cluster that all buildings that had been provided for IDP education in Sulaymaniyah would be re-claimed in the coming 2019-2020 school year.”

Similar efforts are underway in Duhok, read the overview, “where the Ministry of Migration and Displacement has stated that it will no longer pay the rent on buildings used for IDP education.” 

UNOCHA is the agency responsible “for bringing together humanitarian actors to ensure a coherent response to emergencies” and “ensures there is a framework within which each actor can contribute to the overall response effort.”

On Friday, Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported that panic broke out among over 3,500 families living in a displacement camp in Nineveh when forces from multiple security agencies commandeered a camp school in early July to use it for “screening” residents for their relatives’ possible affiliation to the Islamic State.

“While Iraqi police forces should be taking reasonable actions to improve security for everyone, the military should not be occupying schools or even entering camps for the displaced,” said the human rights watchdog.