Feature: Students in Mosul struggle to continue schooling in post-IS era

MOSUL, Iraq, Jan. 4 (Xinhua) -- Mass killings and destruction of infrastructure were only part of the consequences of the Islamic State (IS) rule in Mosul.

There are many more hidden consequences. For instance, three years of IS rule had forced thousands of students in Nineveh Province and its capital Mosul to quit school, and they are striving to return to schools or colleges to restart academic life.

Wahid Akram, 20, who is living in the refugee camp in Khazer area, some 50 km east of Mosul, lost his dream of becoming a doctor, after the IS took control of Mosul in June 2014.

"I was in the third grade of intermediate school when Daesh (IS) group took control of my city, and I was obliged to leave school for three years," said Akram, whose house in Mosul was totally destroyed in anti-IS battles.

After the liberation, Akram tried to return to school, but he was not allowed to continue his study for free because of the age limits on the students in the government-owned schools according to the Iraqi law.

Akram has only one choice: paying about 50,000 Iraqi dinars (40 U.S. dollars) to sign up for a special examination for students outside schools.

"I was forced to sell some of my foodstuff that I received from the humanitarian agencies in the camp to get the money to sign up for the 3rd grade examination," Akram said.

He is now attending unofficial classes at a school opened by a Norwegian humanitarian agency in his camp to prepare for the examination.

"I like reading and will continue my study despite all the hurdles and I'll join Medicine College to help people and to get better life for me and my family," Akram said, showing his determination to achieve his goals.

Like Akram, there are hundreds, or even thousands more of students in other cities and towns who are struggling to return to school amid the negligence of the Iraqi government.

Um Ahmed, mother of a secondary school student, said her son Abdullah Mohammed was in the sixth grade (the last year in secondary school) in 2014, but his study was disrupted when the IS took control of Mosul just before the final examinations.

"He was the best in his class with very high marks. If not for these terrorists, he would have studied in Medicine College and I would have been waiting for him proudly to be a doctor," Um Ahmed said with sorrow and regret.

Seham Mohammed was also deprived of the right to study. She left the primary school at the sixth grade after extremist militants imposed veil on women including young girls, and introduced new textbooks preaching violence and division.

"Although my family and I are refugees in the camp, I decided to continue my education to make my dream of being a teacher come true," she said.

In Khazer refugee camp, Abdullah Younis, the principal of a school opened by the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), told Xinhua that his school is opened during work days to give lessons to students in primary, intermediate and secondary schools to help them continue their study.

Younis said his school is also focusing on psychological support for students to help them forget the dark period under the IS rule.

"We are focusing on sport, drawing and other cultural activities, and if we find any talent pupil we try to support him. We are trying to provide a convenient atmosphere for the students to help them forget the previous life under the brutal IS group," he said.

Hussein al-Jubouri, an educational supervisor from the Iraqi Education Ministry, told Xinhua that the parliament should make exceptional laws for students who lost their school years when their cities and towns came under IS control.

"The Ministry of Education is an executive body, which has no right to make laws. The parliament is the legislative authority which has the power to make such exceptional laws," Jubouri explained.

Unofficial statistics show 7,600 school buildings in the areas controlled by the extremist group in the provinces of Nineveh, Salahudin, Kirkuk, Diyala and Anbar were destroyed or need repairs.

According to statistics released by the Iraqi Ministry of Planing in 2013, before the IS blitzkrieg in northern and western Iraq in 2014, up to 800,000 students were then attending schools in Nineveh Province.

The IS destroyed the education infrastructure, including burning textbooks, exploiting school buildings for other purposes, and replacing textbooks to advocate violence and apostasy.

Many of the schools buildings were used by IS militants as warehouses for weapons and explosives, or as refugee centers for their families and their supporters. Enditem