Education in Sinjar: Schools of Mud and teachers intimidated by armed groups

Shafaq News / To the problem of destroyed schools, villagers in Sinjar district found no solution but to turn their ramshackle mud houses into a place to study.

The schools in Sinjar were devastated by ISIS's takeover and the liberation battles to drive the terrorist militia out of the area.

The government's neglect of reconstruction has deprived dozens of children of continuing their studies.

Mud schools

Mud houses in villages in Sinjar district (located northwest of Mosul) were the solution for the return of Sinjar's children to school more than a year after they returned from displacement.

To provide any place for their children to learn, citizens donated their mud-built houses to be primary schools so that their children would not waste more years of schooling.

Shafaq News agency's correspondent toured the area and documented through pictures those mud schools, which were residents' homes in the Al-Bibi village and the Al-Sayir village, donated by its owners to be schools for the village's students.

Although years have passed since many displaced Arab villagers returned to Sinjar, the files there are still very complicated.

Teachers and militias

A security source revealed to Shafaq News agency direct threats received by the teaching staff in Sinjar from armed factions.

The source added that the Yazidi factions have warned any Muslim teacher not to return or start working in the Sinjar district center or the Yazidi villages they control.

The source added that the Directorate of Education is well aware of this as it causes a problem to it. There are many Muslim teachers attributed to the district's Arab regions - even though they are not needed there - but there is nowhere else for them to go.

Shafaq News agency's correspondent tried to contact Nineveh's Education's director, but the latter did not comment on the matter.

For its part, the Media Division of Nineveh's Education described the Sinjar case as "complex and political" and stated that there would be a lot of work once the scene is settled.

"The local government in Nineveh has allocated 5 billion Iraqi dinars to renovate schools in Sinjar, and this allocation from the provincial development budget will be completed in the coming period", Sami Al-Fadhli of the Information Division of the Nineveh Education Directorate told Shafaq News agency.

Alternative solutions

Meanwhile, an informed source inside Sinjar told Shafaq News agency's reporter that Arab teachers do not go to Sinjar's Education Directorate and that instead, they visit a branch of it in Mosul.

He also explained that the teaching staff is facing major problems that could not be solved in this branch.

The source added that there is a proposal submitted to the Ministry of Education to open a branch in Sinjar in the Sununi sub-district, to be a reference for Arab cadres away from the district's center to avoid problems and clashes and to stay away from the radical Yazidi factions.

These events come despite the announcement of the Baghdad-Erbil agreement to normalize the situation in the district. Sinjar now needs much effort to restore normal life in addition to the need to enforce the law.