Baghdad-Diary\ January 13th.

Education is about to vanish!!!


Good day, this is another day from Baghdad. The days are almost the same here; I have lost the sense of time. The hope I have is the reason I’m still sane in this insane world. My hope is my scholarship which I won to study in the United States. I don’t know what I would be doing if I haven’t won the scholarship. It’s hard to find a job here as I mentioned before, and applying for the Master or Ph.D. degree is something that needs a miracle to be done for the Iraqi students. You can apply but you won’t get it

Thousands of students apply for the higher studies every year, but only few students can be accepted. The reason behind this is the lack of supervising staffs in the Iraqi universities. Many university professors were either killed or they fled the country after the war for the sake of their own security.

There are these envious and vicious groups of terrorists who don’t want my country to stand back on its feet, and they are threatening and killing the educated people of Iraq. They want the country to go back to the Stone Age without education and knowledge.

I applied for the higher studies in my college after I graduated in 2005. I have a B.A. degree in English literature from University of Baghdad. There were about 200 students applying for the higher studies in my college at the same time when I applied. Some of the Iraqi universities and colleges closed the Master and doctoral studies in their departments’ because there are no enough professors to teach and supervise those students.



There is a staff of professors and supervisors in my department who are responsible for the Master and Doctoral studies, they had to interview all of the students who applied to decide whom is eligible to pursue with the higher studies. I was interviewed in a miserable situation; it was very hot in July and there were no electricity in the department at that time. Besides, the place was filled with so many students waiting in line to be interviewed. And there was a competitive exam in August which me and the other students took in an atmosphere compared to hell! The temperature was over 50 degrees, and again, there was no electricity to cool the examination hall, the hall was messy and dirty and there were no good windows to let air come in from the outside. The situation is similar to any other classroom or hall at college!

The shock was that only five students among this huge mass would be accepted to study for their Master or Doctoral degrees! Only five among over 200 students!! The reason, again, is the lack of professors in the Iraqi universities. Those students came from different cities in Iraq to study in here because it is the only place whose departments still have Master and Doctoral studies.

The result came out after a month; I wasn’t accepted. But I didn’t care for it because I was already accepted in the Fulbright Scholarship Program to have my Master degree in the U.S.A.

Oh, have I told you that education is totally free in Iraq?




Peace from the land that was once peaceful…



Photos taken in College of Arts\University of Baghdad. The damaged building is the college's library. It was hit during the war, then burned after the war! It stayed the same for about a whole year. And when it was rebuilt, it stayed out of books and resources!