Rebuilding Iraq’s shattered universities

We encourage you to republish this article online and in print, it’s free under our creative commons attribution license, but please follow some simple guidelines:

You have to credit our authors.
You have to credit SciDev.Net — where possible include our logo with a link back to the original article.
You can simply run the first few lines of the article and then add: “Read the full article on SciDev.Net” containing a link back to the original article.
If you want to also take images published in this story you will need to confirm with the original source if you're licensed to use them.
The easiest way to get the article on your site is to embed the code below.

For more information view our media page and republishing guidelines.

The full article is available here as HTML.

Press Ctrl-C to copy

<div class="article-wrap">
<div id="article-introduction">
<h1>Rebuilding Iraq’s shattered universities</h1>
<h4></h4>
</div>
<br />
<br />

<div id="article-body">
<p><P>On 5 May Baghdad’s Al-Mansour University College became the first in Iraq to reopen its doors. Less than a fortnight later, classes for some 200,000 students at more than 40 public universities and colleges nominally resumed.</P><br />
<P>But — as Andrew Lawler describes in this article — these are the exceptions among Iraq’s once-proud university system, already weakened by more than a decade of economic sanctions, brain drain, and political oppression. Scores of academic buildings around the country were bombed, looted, and burned during the US invasion. And science departments were especially hard hit. </P><br />
<P>The path to recovery will be arduous; money is scarce, security is tenuous, and dozens of top administrators have been fired because of ties to Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party. US officials are promising a clean sweep to put the universities on firmer footing. But all sides agree that this won’t be achieved without large doses of outside help and domestic tranquillity.</P><br />
<P><a href="/sci.cfm?redir=http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/300/5625/1490?ijkey=h.B9V.E3tYRZk&keytype=ref&siteid=sci" target="_blank" onclick="pageTracker._trackPageview('/tracking/external/'+this.href);" rel="noopener noreferrer">Link to full <em>Science </em>article</A></P><br />
<P>Reference: <em>Science </em>300, 1490 (2003)</P></p>

</div>
<div class="quick-links-wrapper">
<h3>You might also like</h3>
[related-articles]
</div>
<p>This article was originally published on <a href="https://www.scidev.net" target="_blank">SciDev.Net</a>. Read the <a href="https://www.scidev.net/global/features/rebuilding-iraqs-shattered-universities/" target="_blank">original article</a>.</p>
<script type="text/javascript">
(function(e,t,n,r,i,s,o){e["GoogleAnalyticsObject"]=i;e[i]=e[i]||function(){(e[i].q=e[i].q||[]).push(arguments)},e[i].l=1*new Date;s=t.createElement(n),o=t.getElementsByTagName(n)[0];s.async=1;s.src=r;o.parentNode.insertBefore(s,o)})(window,document,"script","//www.google-analytics.com/ga.js","ga");var _gaq=_gaq||[];var _gaq=_gaq||[];_gaq.push(["_setAccount","UA-3223906-8"],["_trackEvent","article interaction","republished","https://www.scidev.net/global/features/rebuilding-iraqs-shattered-universities/",null,true])
</script>
</div>

On 5 May Baghdad’s Al-Mansour University College became the first in Iraq to reopen its doors. Less than a fortnight later, classes for some 200,000 students at more than 40 public universities and colleges nominally resumed.

But — as Andrew Lawler describes in this article — these are the exceptions among Iraq’s once-proud university system, already weakened by more than a decade of economic sanctions, brain drain, and political oppression. Scores of academic buildings around the country were bombed, looted, and burned during the US invasion. And science departments were especially hard hit.

The path to recovery will be arduous; money is scarce, security is tenuous, and dozens of top administrators have been fired because of ties to Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party. US officials are promising a clean sweep to put the universities on firmer footing. But all sides agree that this won’t be achieved without large doses of outside help and domestic tranquillity.

Link to full Science article

Reference: Science 300, 1490 (2003)