Good News Unreported: Iraqi Schools Improving
"What biased media"? It always wants to talk about bombs, not books. Anyway, this nice story is dear to my nerdy little grad-school heart:
"There is a growing independence of the universities," said John Agresto , the senior adviser for higher education and scientific research with the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Baghdad. "Despite the fears of religious and political coercion, I think you find incredible openness and dialogue," Mr. Agresto added during a discussion hosted by the American Enterprise Institute. "I think higher education is absolutely going in the right direction," he said. Iraq now has 20 functioning universities and 43 technical institutes and colleges. These are mainly public and overall experienced a 50 percent increase in freshman enrollment last year. Policy at the institutions is set by their own presidents, rather than the central government, Mr. Agresto said. "This is absolutely a major change." He also noted that university students for the first time have access to the Internet. |
My own undergrad alma mater (in Texas, no less!) is engaged in helping one university in northern Iraq. Makes me darn proud! There's been enough ideological (or more accurately, ideologue-driven) whining from the far-out left and the "peace" protesters. We have a chance to really do something real and useful in Iraq...including building an educational system whose improvements have been almost completely ignored by the mass media.
BY THE WAY, belated but nonetheless sincere kudos to actor Gary Sinise, who has launched an effort to do exactly that...help Iraqi schools. (Thanks, Gary, for giving me hope that not everyone in left-dominated Hollywood is some sort of Michael Moore-ish maniac.) I quote Sinise, who words it all perfectly:
Sinise, who recently visited an Iraqi school while on a trip to the country, said the campaign was a "non-partisan, non-political issue". "Whether you are for the war or against the war, that's not the point here," he said at the Kansas City launch. "This effort has to be successful, and a big part of that effort is building these relationships and nurturing these children who are in desperate need, who have nothing and have been left to fend for themselves," he said. Sinise encouraged schools, churches and other organisations to help raise money. "They've been taught for so long that Americans aren't very good folks," Sinise said. "And we know that we are a generous bunch of people here." |