Source: Xinhua| 2019-02-17 19:38:00|Editor: mmm

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Photo taken on Feb. 17, 2019 shows a few students at a primary school in Baghdad, Iraq. Iraqi teachers began on Sunday a two-day nationwide strike, demanding improvement in curriculum and levels of educational system, as well as increasing the living standard of the teaching staff. The strike included primary and secondary schools in Baghdad and other Iraqi provinces. (Xinhua/Khalil Dawood)

BAGHDAD, Feb. 17 (Xinhua) -- Iraqi teachers began on Sunday a two-day nationwide strike, demanding improvement in curriculum and levels of educational system, as well as increasing the living standard of the teaching staff.

"Iraqi teachers are on strike for Sunday and Monday in all the Iraqi provinces (except for the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan), aiming at drawing attention to the deteriorated educational process in the country," Abbas al-Sudani, head of the Iraqi Teachers' Syndicate, told a gathering at the building of the syndicate in Baghdad.

The strike included primary and secondary schools in Baghdad and other Iraqi provinces.

"The educational process in Iraq has dramatically declined," al-Sudani said.

"We need to improve the quality of the Iraqi student and reform the educational curriculum, in addition to support the infrastructure as the needs of thousands of schools," al-Sudani added.

He said that the government "should allocate a proper budget for the Ministry of Education, which will improve the level of teachers through real development courses."

In the 1970s and 1980s, Iraq had one of the best educational performances in the region with high literacy levels.

But after the first Gulf war in 1991 when Iraq invaded Kuwait, the country's education has suffered a lot by the 13 years of UN sanctions, U.S.-led invasion in 2003 and years of instability that followed.