A new educational program may give students from Iraq the chance to study at Emporia State University.
Jim Harter, ESU’s assistant vice president for international education, will be traveling to Iraq later this month to take part in a symposium on international education, with events in Baghdad and in Sulaimaniya in Iraqi Kurdistan.
The events are part of the Iraq Education Initiative, a recently announced program designed to rebuild Iraq’s higher education system.
The $1 billion plan will enable 10,000 Iraqi students a year for five years to attend universities in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, France and Germany. The money will be used to fund scholarships for students pursuing associate, bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees.
The initiative will be paid for with revenue from Iraq’s oil reserves, according to Zuhair Humadi, senior adviser to Iraq’s vice president.
Harter will leave for Amman, Jordan on Jan. 17.
“The only commercial flight going into Iraq is from Amman,” he said. He will fly into Baghdad from Jordan the next day.
The symposium will feature participation by Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki, along with the country’s minister of education and the minister of higher education. Also attending will be Ryan Crocker, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq. Representatives of American universities will meet with education officials and with Iraqi students wanting to study in the United States.
Harter doesn’t yet know how much interest there will be from Iraqi students.
“They think at the exhibition fair in Baghdad that we should prepare for a minimum of 300, but there might be as many as 500,” he said. “I don’t know for sure about Sulaimaniya, but yesterday when I talked to Dr. Humadi, he said to prepare for as many people there. He thinks there will be great interest in the eastern part of Iraq as well.”
Harter said there will be representatives from about 30 American schools attending the conference.
In a letter to university representatives, Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki explained the purpose of the new initiative: “For many years, the system of higher education in Iraq was regarded as one of the finest in the Arab and Moslem worlds. Students from many countries came to Iraq to attend our colleges and universities, however, wars and sanctions have impaired the system of education. ... Iraq needs a strategic program that will transform its education system in order to make up the time lost in developing its human resources.”
An ESU student from Saudi Arabia, Qassim Almukhtar, said he has talked to people from Iraq.
“Right now, I would say there’s nothing in Iraq,” Almukhtar said. “I met a guy last week from Iraq, and he said, ‘Imagine a country without security.’ I’m hoping about this conference and with other conferences (the Iraqis) will improve their country with everything, starting with education. This is a step to educate the people about everything in life.”
For Harter, the Middle East has long been an area of interest. His wife, Dorine, is from Iran.
“I was married in Iran ... in fact, Sulaimaniya is not too far from places I visited in Iran years ago,” he said.
Harter doesn’t know how many students the program might bring to ESU.
“Many of the students are going to be needing some intensive English,” he said. “Then they can go on into academic programs. The fact that they can do their intensive English here, and then go on into academic programs after meeting the English proficiency requirements, is a plus for us.”
Harter believes in the role education will play in rebuilding Iraq and in fostering a functional, peaceful society.
“I feel very strongly that education is a part of the whole network of peace, and it has to happen,” he said. “We need to have people working together, studying together, understanding each other’s cultures, and the best way to do that is face to face. For good old-fashioned education, especially cross-cultural education, it’s still the best process.”