Four Iraqi academics yesterday pressed their case for greater co-operation and funding to rebuild the country's dilapidated educational infrastructure at a conference in Birmingham. The delegation - all from further education institutes - spent up to a week trying to get out of Iraq to explain their predicament at the annual conference of the Association of Colleges. A number of British FE establishments, supported by the AOC and the British Council, have already forged "twinning" programmes to help their Iraqi counterparts. One of the group, Dr Abduljabbar Hadi Hamadi, the dean of Basra Technical College in southern Iraq, said it was likely to cost millions of pounds to bring Iraqi education to current levels elsewhere in the world. Education from primary school to university level has been seriously damaged because of the combined effects of the Iraq-Iran war and international sanctions following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. It was also limited because of the restricted world-view of Saddam Hussein's regime and many of the 2,300 FE teaching staff moved to work abroad. The recent US-led conflict had destroyed many school and college buildings, and looting robbed them of even basic equipment such as desks, books and blackboards, he added. Dr Adnan N Abood, head of scientific affairs department at the Iraqi Foundation of Technical Education, said: "Our staff have been in prison for 13 years, isolated, cut off. "Since April last year, all the promises given by the Americans and the other countries have not been carried out." A lack of vocational education was creating a skills gap, he added. Dr Hamadi, whose own institution was badly damaged but is still being used for teaching, said the UK was an ideal partner because of its experience in the FE sector and advanced levels of administration and training. Greater links were obvious because English is Iraq's second language and its educational system is based on the British model. "The UK is one of the world's most developed countries," he went on. "We need this experience to develop our own education sector as well as other areas such as health and industry." The AOC-British Council Further Education Iraq Group was launched in February this year following discussions with Dr Hamadi and the president of the Iraqi Foundation for Technical Education. Its vision is to help develop a "restructured, modernised and responsive" vocational education system along regional lines to support the skills needed to reconstruct Iraq. A total of ten UK FE colleges are so far involved in providing expertise in areas such as management, exchange programmes and standardised qualifications for teachers, and developing teaching and learning methods and the curriculum. Books and learning materials are also being provided by organisations such as British Education Suppliers Association and The British Publishers Association. Katie Epstein, director of vocational partnerships at the British Council said: "We're looking to develop the programme with more British funding either through agencies such as the Department for International Development or the World Bank." | 
