It’s also one which Iraqis at all levels have raised in my seven visits there in recent years – they are very keen to build myriad connections with the UK, culturally, commercially and politically.
They have a deep affection for Britain and respect its traditions, services and products. This is not a mere commercial imperative but a means of enabling them to catch up with modernity from which they have been isolated for decades.
There is an increasing number of practical initiatives which aim to do this. One of them is a group called Rawabit – the Arabic for friendship which was established with the help of former Labour Minister Bill Rammell and commands cross-party support. I am a voluntary adviser.
This is a partnership scheme between Iraqi and British educationalists. For the past 7 years it has successfully supported long overdue and badly needed educational reform in Iraq.
It has organised technical and further education college twinning links, including practical immersion and work-shadowing programmes in the UK. Using the expertise of FE lecturers and principals across the country it has done much to help improve teaching practice, quality assurance, management and employer/community engagement as well as piloting an Iraqi Deans’ qualifying programme and developing a women’s leadership network.
Rawabit has engaged with over 600 individual practitioners in 60 technical colleges across Iraq, nurtured significant changes in leadership practice, with greater devolved as opposed to the old centralised model of management, and increased the availability of vocational skills through programmes for the unemployed and former prisoners and militia members.
It helps Iraqi colleges to play a bigger role in social cohesion and economic regeneration.
All in all, it’s a good scheme that builds mutually beneficial connections between the Iraqi and British education sectors. I understand that £13 million of equipment has been bought from British companies.
It’s also a unique opportunity to expand the horizons of British staff and students and develop greater understanding of the history, culture and issues in Iraq.
Its website is www.rawabit.org
It is good to see positive intervention and action in a country that has been torn apart for so long. Building education, schools, free trade unions and a social economy could help Iraq become a progressive force in the Middle East. The UK has a responsibility to do more to achieve this.