Maliki teams with US universities to rebuild Iraqi education

Iraqi students may use their scholarship at any US university and are not limited to those in the consortium, Humadi said. Maliki also signed Saturday a memorandum of understanding with Ohio educational officials that offers Iraqi students in-state tuition.

An education system decimated

Baghdad is launching this Iraq Education Initiative as part of an effort to rebuild its entire education system, once one of the best in the Arab world and noted particularly for its engineering and medical schools. But since 1990 the country's education system has deteriorated drastically because of economic sanctions and war-related violence set off by the 2003 US occupation. Universities have been decimated by assassinations and the flight of hundreds of professors. 

At Saturday's ceremony, Humadi praised Maliki for his early embrace of the scholarship plan soon after Humadi proposed it a year ago. The Iraqi leader's response, Humadi said, was "I want to see Iraqi students in the airplane [going] to study abroad."

The program will be administered by Iraq's Higher Committee for Education Development, which Humadi runs out of Maliki's office. As a result, it will be relatively free from the snares of Iraq's state bureaucracy.

Equal opportunity for Sunnis, Shiites

Students will apply online at the program's website (www.hcediraq.org), where criteria for obtaining a scholarship will also be posted, Humadi said.

"We'll adhere to" those criteria, he  said, stressing that the program "is going to be very transparent. No wastas with high government officials."

Wasta is Arabic for a connection who can do favors because of his influence or position.

Also, scholarships will be allocated according to a formula based on the population of each of Iraq's 18 provinces "so no one can say you are sending more Shias than Sunnis," Humadi said. And there will be "no discrimination whatsoever" between female and male applicants, he added.

Initially, most students are likely to be working towards a masters degree, but scholarships will also go to undergraduates and those pursuing PhDs. Students will be encouraged to study engineering, education, information technology, business, law, and medicine.

Students expected to return to Iraq

They also will be expected to return to Iraq and work there for as long as they studied overseas on scholarship. For this reason, the Iraqi government will seek to have students coming to the US hold J-1 visas, which allow less flexibility than other types of visas when it comes to extending a stay in this country. 

Humadi estimated the eventual cost of the program would be $50,000 per student. So far, Iraq's parliament has appropriated $54 million to cover the 500-student pilot program for the next school year.

Humadi said Iraq has also appropriated $2.5 million to match the same amount from the US government in order to fund  Fulbright scholarships for 70 to 80 Iraqis in the coming school year.

Harriet Mayor Fulbright, widow of US Senator William Fulbright, creator of the prestigious scholarship program, attended Saturday's ceremony at the Academy. She serves on the Academy's board of directors.

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