Baghdad forms committees to review, recognize nine Kurdistan public universities

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The federal government of Iraq recently formed three committees to review and recognize nine long-established public universities in the autonomous Kurdistan Region in a bid to standardize higher education across the country.

According to a document Kurdistan 24 has obtained, the decision to form the committees had been issued on Wednesday by the Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research.

“The committees are expected to visit the Kurdistan Region this week,” Mohammed Shakir, member of the Iraqi Parliament’s Committee of Education, Higher Education, and Scientific Research, told Kurdistan 24 on Friday.

The Kurdish universities that remain unrecognized by the federal government of Iraq are: University of Kurdistan – Hewler (UKH) founded in 2006, University of Soran (2009), University of Raparin (2010), University of Halabja (2011), University of Garmian (2010), University of Zakho (2010), Erbil Polytechnic University (1996), Sulaimani Polytechnic University (1996), and Duhok Polytechnic University (2012).

The quality of teaching and research in most of these universities is considerably high and matches international standards, according to Shakir. However, their lack of official recognition from the federal government of Iraq has been the subject of political disputes between Erbil and Baghdad over the past decades.

“We, previously, as part of a committee visited Iraqi universities, and we found out that the quality of teaching and learning in our universities is much better than most of those in Iraq,” the Kurdish lawmaker added.

He mentioned that according to the Constitution of Iraq, there should be a sort of coordination between the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and the federal government of Iraq when it comes to opening new universities and educational institutions in the autonomous region, but that said coordination was absent.

The Kurdish lawmaker also added that the formation of the committees comes days after several meetings with the Ministry, asserting that he is hopeful official recognition will follow the committees’ visit.

The aforementioned universities in the past decades have produced thousands of graduates in the Kurdistan Region. The lack of recognition from the Iraqi federal government has already generated problems for many of the graduates, who have sought to enroll in post-graduate programs and earn scholarships abroad.

Editing by Nadia Riva 

(Additonal reporting by Hoshmand Sadiq)