1.5 million students head for schools in Iraqi Kurdistan

ARBIL / IraqiNews.com: The new Iraqi Academic year has began in northern Iraq’s Kurdistan Region on Saturday with over 1.5 million students and pupils from both sexes heading to their school classes.   The celebration for the beginning of the New Academic Year in Kurdistan had began in Arbil’s Mawlawi School, with the presence of the Kurdistan Premier, Barham Saleh and the Region’s Education Minister, Safin Dizae, where the flag of Kurdistan was raised and the Kurdistan National Anthem was played.   Kurdistan Premier, Dr. Barham Saleh, delivered a speech on this occasion, calling for necessity to exert serious attention to the education standards, in which he confirmed that “education is very important, as well as the improvement of the living conditions of the teaching cadres, and to help raising their scientific standard, through their participation in training courses.”   Kurdistan’s Education Minister, Safin Dizae, has said that “the beginning of the new Academic Year in Kurdistan shall witness 1,537,874 male and female students would head to primary, secondary and vocational schools in the Kurdistan Region.”   He said that the number of schools in Kurdistan Region had reached over 5,000 schools, whilst they did not exceed 1,000 schools in the past.   The Minister pointed out to the existence of projects to build 482 new schools in the Region, along with laying down the foundation stones for building 3 vocational compounds in Kurdistan’s three Provinces of Arbil, Sulaimaniya and Dohuk, in order to prepare specialized vocational cadres.   SKH (TR)/SR 284