The Dispatch
A New Era for Iraq
Since 2003, Iraq’s higher education has seen unprecedented growth. Key reforms are now vital to build a regional knowledge hub.
By Nick Harland
"Beginning in the early 2000s... the higher education landscape in Iraq experienced unprecedented growth and restructuring."
"If Iraqi higher education does get the reform it needs, the sector could be on the cusp of another watershed moment."
In Brief
- Despite the destruction of 84 percent of institutions, Iraq’s sector saw unprecedented growth and restructuring, largely defined by privatisation and slow internationalisation efforts.
- The number of high school-aged people has increased 600% over three decades, but opportunity hasn’t kept pace.
- To overcome infrastructure and skill gaps, deep structural reforms are needed to depoliticize governance, enhance quality assurance, and align research with national priorities.
If you asked one person from every country to pick a watershed moment for their nation’s education system, some would be more obvious than others. In the United Kingdom, the 2010 tripling of tuition fees for domestic students immediately comes to mind. In the United States, the current clampdown on international students and universities more widely feels like a big milestone.
For Iraq, their watershed moment unquestionably came in 2003. That was the year when US forces invaded the country, triggering the start of a conflict that dragged on for eight years. In that time, higher education in Iraq almost came to a standstill.
According to one estimate, 84 percent of academic institutions were looted and/or destroyed between 2003 and 2005. Student enrolment also plummeted. Around the time of the war, UNESCO estimated that there were around 250,000 university students in Iraq. The country’s Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research puts the figure closer to 400,000. And although concrete data on just how much enrolment dropped is hard to come by, one thing’s for sure: university enrolment still hasn’t recovered to pre-war levels. Recent reports suggest that there are now just 147,606 university students in Iraq.
But conversely, that year also marked the start of a new era for Iraq. “Beginning in the early 2000s and especially after 2003, the higher education landscape in Iraq experienced unprecedented growth and restructuring,” says Professor Dr Salwan M. Abdulateef, Deputy Dean at the University of Anbar and member of the QS Advisory Board. “The increase in the number of public and private universities and colleges was aimed at meeting the demands of the higher education market.”
The post-2003 era of Iraqi higher education is probably defined by two things: privatisation and internationalisation.
As student enrolment in public universities fell (partly due to a collapse in government funding), private universities stepped in to plug the gaps. Now, it’s thought that around 20 percent of students in Iraq study at private institutions. However, the rapid growth of the private sector has created problems of ”poorly managed quality assurance and governance” which is “creating disparities” in higher education, according to Dr Abdulateef.
Privatisation has also led to politicisation. As of 2018, 16 out of 21 private universities in Iraq were owned by influential political parties. “One of the key challenges facing higher education in Iraq is the influence of politics on university governance,” says Dr Abdulateef.
“The appointment of some academic leaders has not always been based on merit or scholarly qualifications, but rather on political affiliation or partisan influence. This reality has undermined trust in the fairness of appointments and weakened institutional development.”
Internationalisation has been slow to happen, but it is happening. The American University of Iraq became the first international university in the country in 2007, and English-taught courses are becoming more common. The country’s Ministry of Higher Education started implementing the Bologna Process in 2023 (though some universities had started the process themselves as far back as 2017), which will help to standardise degrees and increase the recognition of Iraqi qualifications abroad.
The country also launched the ‘Study in Iraq’ initiative in 2023, aimed at bringing in international students and advancing Iraqi universities in global rankings and international academic publishing.
But although the country has made huge strides in recent years, challenges still remain. “Many universities still have inadequate and obsolete facilities, poorly constructed and equipped laboratories, and weak overall digital connectivity,” explains Dr Abdulateef.
“Unemployment of graduates and poorly designed academic programs leave profound gaps, while qualified and skilled personnel continue to leave the country, worsening the situation.”
Another big challenge is the growing shortage of university places for young people. Though the number of secondary school graduates increased by some 600 percent between 1981 and 2017, the number of public universities hasn’t grown at anything like the same speed. It means that many young people are simply locked out of higher education, forced to enter a stuttering job market that often doesn’t work for them.
Given the issues facing the sector, many young Iraqis choose to study elsewhere. An estimated 44,000 study abroad, with the most popular destinations including the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. The government has seemingly leant into that trend, recently announcing an expansion of its postgraduate scholarship programme to offer 5,000 scholarships from now until 2030. And those who return to Iraq after studying abroad are starting to have a noticeable impact on society.
"I've noticed that a lot of young people [studying abroad] come back from Canada or the United States to bring those new technologies, mindset and culture to Baghdad," says Midhat Zwayen, an Iraqi-American leadership strategist and president of Dijlah Consulting Engineers. He highlights the example of young people returning to Iraq and founding delivery apps based on what they experienced abroad.
Zwayen has also noticed a growing generational divide in the country. The young people entering the job market today were born after the dictatorship and the war, leaving them free of the scars that hold many older Iraqis back. Zwayen tends to hire younger people at his company for this very reason.
"For the people who lived through the 80s, the answer is 'no' all of the time,” he says. “But the younger generation don't have the fear of the dictatorship. The people who were born in and around 1998 never experienced that. So, they're very open-minded, and they speak their mind."
Zwayen goes on to say that young Iraqis appear more ‘driven’ to complete their education than ever before. And for the many who still don’t have the chance to go to university, they’re learning how to educate themselves in other ways. "A lot of Iraqi kids these days learn to speak English just from watching YouTube. I find this fascinating. So, they are willing to learn something, they just need the opportunity."
Still, this desire for an education must result in genuine opportunities for the country’s young people. Increased investment will be key to expanding the reach of higher education in Iraq, but it’ll take more than money to change things. "Sometimes if you just get funding, it doesn't mean that it's necessarily a good thing. Sometimes you need changes to the regulations too,” says Zwayen.
Dr. Abdulateef highlights seven areas that will be vital if Iraq is to continue making strides in higher education:
● Digital transformation, to ‘reduce the urban–rural gap in access to higher education’
● Quality assurance and accreditation, to create more structured national accreditation systems and increase global recognition of Iraqi qualifications
● Research and innovation in fields directly tied to Iraq’s national priorities, to make universities more relevant to economic development
● Internationalisation, to ‘attract more international students, foster partnerships with global universities and boost visibility in global rankings’
● Graduate employability and skills, to ensure universities are meeting labour market needs and to reduce graduate unemployment
● Decentralisation and government reform, to ‘empower universities to innovate, secure diverse funding streams and respond more flexibly to societal needs’
● Depoliticising higher education, to restore public confidence in universities and enhance the overall quality of higher education in Iraq.
“If these reforms are implemented consistently, Iraqi higher education has the potential to transform from a system struggling with infrastructure and governance challenges into a regional hub of knowledge production and innovation, directly contributing to Iraq’s sustainable development and global integration,” adds Dr Abdulateef.
If Iraqi higher education does get the reform it needs, the sector could be on the cusp of another watershed moment. For a country that has had its fair share of those over the years, this one would be more than welcome.