READER COMMENTS

Under the former regime, Iraqi teachers cared little about the students. The reason behind this was the limited salaries and premiums which were not enough for their living. Some of them depended on private lessons given to pupils. The living conditions were not as difficult as they are now, but a teacher’s salary was low, as he used to get only 3000 dinars per month. What would the teacher do with such a salary? It was not enough to rent a house, especially for teachers who came from different provinces in search of a job. The Ministry of Education was not aware of the teacher who spent all day teaching, waiting for the end of the month to earn an amount considered by some as a charity and not a salary. But now, things have changed, and a teacher’s salary is now much more than before, amounting to at least 750,000 Iraqi dinars, in addition to the advances obtained by the teacher. There is also the distribution of plots of lands to staff, as well as loans to build houses. The Ministry of Education has allocated retirement benefits to teachers who have retired. We should not forget that there are generations who graduated at the hands of these teachers. The latter have contributed to the children’s education and upbringing. Our government should pay tribute to every teacher for his duty towards the students by educating them and building the future generation.

Teachers play a key role in the formation of the new generation; therefore the Ministry of Education should take an interest in them and improve their living conditions, in order to help them. Thus, they will be able to build a new, educated and skilled generation capable of building the new Iraq. However, this sector suffered a lot under the former regime, where teachers could hardly make ends meet, whereas teachers are considered like prophets, as they have a message to deliver. The Ministry of Education should reward teachers to improve their performance. So we ask the Ministry to continue to pay tribute to them, to shed light on the distribution of residential lands, and to give them loans to meet the teachers’ needs.

Educated people, writers and teachers present a nice image of our country. They are the tongue and the pen of our great country. But there is no attention given to them, either by the satellite channels or by the government. There is no one to shed light on them and on their works and activities and new releases.

I think that educated people, poets and writers are the most neglected people in Iraq.

Despite some violations of the rights of the press, we can say that the Iraqi press today is enjoying more freedom in terms of pluralism, freedom of hosting, expression of opinion, and freedom for the writers, and in general it has had a sufficient amount of freedom provided by the government. Previously, the press reflected only the view of one single person in the previous dictatorial regime; it would place Saddam’s photo on the front page and write below it the achievements of the leader, none of which were true. Also, TV was governmental only, and would glorify and commemorate the Baath [party], led by Saddam; it could not say anything other than that. Now, however, the situation is different; now, there is more freedom to speak of the government’s or officials’ mistakes, and one can also speak about the lack of services and criticize it. The current freedom of speech provided by the government to the press and media is good to a great extent, to reveal the facts, to straighten out many matters, and to assess the performance and work correctly and specifically.

There is great freedom of the press in Kurdistan, which we as Kurds are proud of. We are very much developed in the field of media journalism, and everybody has the freedom to write what he want and say what he want. The reasons for that are the stability of the security situation and the level of awareness of the Kurdish people, as well as the fact that we have excellent and attractive satellite channels like Korek, Channel 4, Zagros and Kurdistan. We need to have more freedom and development.