ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – More than 1.7 million students across the Kurdistan Region went back to class on Tuesday.

"Greetings to the parents that send those pupils, those beautiful kids, to get an education for them to have a bright and beautiful future serving Kurdistan,” Pishtiwan Sadiq, Minister of Education, said in a speech at a school in Erbil.

Infrastructure is a major challenge facing the education sector, the minister added. During the years of the financial crisis, the government was not able to construct new schools.

Students in Sulaimani faced an added challenge last year, when classes were suspended for weeks during a teachers’ strike.

"[Let] the new government be the government of revitalizing the education sector. The education system and process should not come to a halt again for any reason,” Sulaimani Governor Haval Abubakr said in a school in his province on Tuesday.

Sadiq said they have some long term projects to improve the education system in collaboration with international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and urged families to get more involved.

"Education can't be separated from society. Families have to consider it their own,” he said.

The return to school was delayed by a couple of days until after the September 30 election because many schools were used as polling stations.

Ruadw