Posters of candidates from different political parties are seen in Erbil of Kurdistan, Iraq, on Sept. 11, 2018. Picture by Yasser Jawad/Xinhua News Agency/PA Images. All rights reserved. Every year, thousands of parents make a lot of sacrifice and spend their lifetime fortunes so that their children can get into good schools and universities. Thousands of high school graduates passionately get admission in public and private universities. But after four years of studying, many of them end up unemployed and jobless. This reflects a misallocation of their incomes, time, energy, and age. Meanwhile, the KRG Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research and the Ministry of Education have failed to tackle issues of overcrowded classrooms, outdated curriculums, and favouritism.
In 2017 in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, more than ten thousand students dropped out of school in the city of Sulaimani alone, mostly due to economic problems. Out of that number seven thousand are male and 3 thousand are female. Among those, high school students constitute the lion’s share. According to information provided by the Sulaimani Education Directorate, in 2017 and due to austerity measures by the Kurdistan Regional Government, 1356 teachers quit and asked for unpaid leave in order to find other work.
University students are also leaving their universities and heading mostly to Europe since programs do not correspond to the demands of today in the fields of science and technology. UNIDO’s survey shows that unemployment in the Kurdistan region stands at 24% for men and 69% for women, highlighting administrative, economic, and educational dysfunctions and systematic problems in Kurdistan Regional Government’s institutions.
