Iraqi Education Ministry Takes Charge of Schools

The Coalition Provisional Authority has officially handed control over Iraq's schools to the country's own Ministry of Education [free registration required]. No word when, if ever, control will be returned to families.

Saddam, like virtually every totalitarian dictator in history, nationalized or shut down all private schools upon seizing power. The reason why is obvious: it's a lot easier to whip up support for your own regime and antipathy toward your enemies if you control the schools. Centralized government control over schooling is thus key.

An equally obvious historical pattern is that official government school systems have been a consistent source of social conflict. This is true even in the most stable and internally peaceful democracies, such as the United States, where controversies such as the teaching of the origin of humanity are recurring sources of conflict. A little over a hundred years ago things were hotter still. When Catholic families in Philadelphia successfully pressured the schools to use their own version of the Bible instead of the Protestant version (public schools were originally pervasively religious) it sparked the infamous "Bible riots" in which many people were killed and St. Augustine's church was burned to the ground.

Iraq's internal religious divisions provide ample prospect for conflict if the nation sticks with an official government school system. Iraqis already realize that settling on a universally acceptable curriculum is a key sticking point.

The solution: implement a market-based education system with need-based financial assistance, and let families pursue the kind of education they value for their children without obliging them to force their choices on their fellow citizens.