BAGHDAD // History, geography and literature have been taken off the school timetable in Mosul.

Students returned to schools in parts of northern Iraq ruled by ISIL militants to find a ban on most subjects except religious studies.

The Al Qaeda breakaway group has ordered schools to open in the territory under its control.

According to a letter sent to the local education ministry office in Mosul, a replacement curriculum would soon be provided by the group, while the phrase “the Republic of Iraq or Syria wherever found or seen should be replaced with Islamic State” in existing text books.

The move reflects the group’s efforts to entrench itself in parts of Iraq and Syria.

In the ISIL stronghold of Raqqah in Syria, residents say the militants have stoned women to death for adultery and reported that the markets have been flooded with black cloaks for girls as young as 6 years old.

The militants have “threatened to punish any teacher who refuses to go to school”, said Maha Al Azzawi, 33, who teaches mathematics and Arabic at an elementary school in Mosul. “It’s 2014 but I feel we went back 14 centuries.”

Before the fighting there were 850,000 students in Nineveh province attending 2,450 schools, according to Yasser Al Ebadi from the Nineveh education department.

Thousands fled to Kurdish-controlled regions after ISIL’s advance, many of them belonging to Christian and Yazidi minorities.

“95 per cent of schools are under [ISIL] control,” said Mr Al Ebadi. Classrooms have been segregated, with only women allowed to teach girls, he said, while teacher salaries were still being paid by the central government in Baghdad.

Nour Al Nuaimi, 27, in her final year of studying to be a nurse, said she tried to escape from Mosul to pursue her education in Kirkuk, 65 kilometres away from the city, and under Kurdish control. She said that after passing several ISIL check points she was turned back by the first Kurdish Peshmerga forces she encountered.

“I feel like my future is ruined,” she said.

Another student, who asked to be identified as Abu Iraq, said that militants had closed down the law college he attended, saying that conventional legal practices would no longer be tolerated.

The strictures imposed by militants on Mosul’s young are creating a backlash, according to Dalya Al Barzanchi, 21, a student at Mosul University.

“At first, when [ISIL] captured the city, a third of Mosul’s residents welcomed them, thinking they were rebels against an unjust government,” said Ms Al Barzanchi.

“Now I can tell you, 98 per cent of Mosul wants them kicked out of the city as soon as possible.”

* Bloomberg