On Saturday, June 18, 2022, under the terms of the Iraqi-Chinese agreement, the Prime Minister of the Iraqi Federal Government laid the foundation stone for the construction of 1,000 new school buildings.

As a ministry, we congratulate the federal governorates and believe that this would create a favorable and conducive environment for the education sector. However, what is unfortunate is the share of the Kurdistan Region which is 150 school buildings, previously we addressed our official letter No. 374 on November 23 of 2020 to the ministry of education of federal government and we clearly illustrated the fact that with the presence of all of our governors in the event back in china, it has been pointed out that this agreement is for all Iraq and all the Iraqis.

With the emergence of ISIS terrorist group back in 2014, many of our Arab brothers fled to the governorates of Kurdistan Region seeking security and protection from ISIS. As part of our humanitarian obligation we currently host more than 180,000 internally displaced students in our school buildings and as a result most of our single shift schools became double or triple shifts, and we have officially asked for 10 billion Iraqi dinars to repair these schools but the federal government has refused to allocate any budget.

Despite the deprivation we again congratulate the Iraqi people, and we will continue to hold on and preserve our coexistence values and to serve the internally displaced students, but in the meanwhile we express our concern and dissatisfaction with the decision to cut off the share of the Kurdish people and deprive them of this natural right, and we call on the Federal Iraqi Government to view education as a fundamental right for all Iraqis and reverse the decision and provide the share of the Kurdistan Region, otherwise depriving the citizens of our region with all its minorities will mean that the Federal Iraqi Government is not willing to sustain a balanced development policy for all the Iraqis equally.

Ministry of Education of Kurdistan Regional Government.
18 June, 2022