Oct 9, 2016

ERBIL, Iraq — On Sept. 22 and 23, the Dwryan Organization held its second conference in Sulaimaniyah with the participation of researchers and specialists in the field of education. The conference focused on the need to reform the curriculum on two levels. The first is by replacing the curriculum with a more balanced, civil one. The second is by changing purely religious texts to ones that are closer to the spirit of the age, focusing on peaceful coexistence with nonviolent societal components, in addition to closing some religious schools and replacing them with more moderate schools.

During the 2015/2016 academic year, 39 schools, six institutes and 5,000 students were transferred from the Ministry of Religious Endowments to the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research or to the Ministry of Education. But there are still traditional religious schools, called "hojra" in Kurdish vernacular. Those belong to the Ministry of Religious Endowments. Mariwan Naqshbandi, the ministry’s public relations officer, told Al-Monitor, "There are still 100 traditional religious schools affiliated with the ministry and they comprise 570 religious students, or what they call in Kurdish 'faqi,' who receive lessons by clerics in the region of Kurdistan."

Several changes have been made to the previous religious curriculum. But researcher Bahman Tahir, who teaches elementary school through high school, said that the commission tasked to change the curriculum consisted of seven men and no women, which was reflected in the curriculum’s masculine discourse. He added, "If the former approach had a violent jihadi character, the new approach has a large deficiency toward women, in addition to a lot of intellectual and educational deficiencies that make the curriculum far from the spirit of the times and incompatible with applied sciences."

These reformist attempts are occurring amid a conflict between the traditional Islamist religious trend and the secular civil trend, which is fighting to change the curriculum entirely and replace it with comparative studies of religions. On that, Al-Monitor asked Tahir about the types of problems in the current curriculum. He said, "First, there is no harmony between the educational materials. For example, in the subjects of religion and geography, there is a disagreement on why it rains. Second, religious education aims to build a sectarian religious identity for the students and calls non-Muslims apostates.” He concluded, “In effect, this approach helped create Islamic extremism and religious violence in Kurdistan."

Naqshbandi confirmed that religious schools have a role in producing extremists in Kurdistan. He said, "Most Kurds who joined [the Islamic State] had attended religious schools affiliated with the Islamic movements in one form or another, which is why they were closed." He did not contend that the 100 remaining schools are not producing extremists.