The Politics of IDP Education Provision: Negotiating identity and schooling in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq
| Published date | 01 April 2019 |
| Author | Kelsey Shanks |
| Date | 01 April 2019 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/imig.12545 |
The Politics of IDP Education Provision:
Negotiating identity and schooling in the
Kurdistan Region of Iraq
Kelsey Shanks*
ABSTRACT
The expansion of Islamic State control in Iraq led to massive internal displacement. Iraq now
has one of the largest internally displaced populations in the world. Many families found rela-
tive safety in government-controlled towns throughout the country; a large proportion sought
refuge in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI), having fled from its northern territories where
Arabs, Kurds, Yezidis, Assyrians and Turkmen each claimed demographic dominance. Conse-
quently, the KRI has become a sanctuary to almost a million Iraqi IDPs of varying ethnic
backgrounds and cultures. This article draws on extensive regional fieldwork to explore the
relationship between education provision for displaced populations and broader ethno-sectarian
and socio-political influences. The articlewill unpackthe researchquestion: “In what ways
does education for IDPs in KRI exacerbate or mitigate conflict?”and will highlight key areas
in which misunderstanding of identity politics has resulted in reduced quality education for
displaced populations.
INTRODUCTION
Iraq is currently facing one of the most volatile and complex humanitarian crises in the world. The
territorial conflict withthe Islamic State(IS) forced over3 million peopleto flee their homes in
large waves of displacement. Many families found relative safety in government-controlled towns
and cities throughout the country, with a large proportion of the internally displaced persons (IDPs)
seeking refuge in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KR-I). This influx of IDPs added to the exist-
ing 245,000 displaced Syrian refugeescurrently registered in the region (UNHCR, 2015).The so-
called “mega-crisis”caused the KR-I’s population to increase by 28 per cent in a matter of months,
with the total number of refugees and IDP’snow amountingtoroughly 1.4 million,whilethe
Kurdish population stands at only 5-million (World Bank, 2015).
The devastating human cost of the conflict continues to be felt across the region, and the needs
of the affected populations have reached an unprecedented scale. The impact on children and youth
has been particularly overwhelming, with interrupted education, exposure to severe harm and abuse
and a lack of opportunities for the future. Such violence has left many IDP children in danger of
becoming increasingly marginalized as the conflict continues. The international community has rec-
ognized the danger of a “lost generation”in Iraq and Syria, and global emphasis has been placed
on the need to improve services to children affected by the regional crisis (UNICEF, 2014).
* Ulster University
doi: 10.1111/imig.12545
©2019 The Authors. International Migration
published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of
International Organization for Migration
International Migration Vol. 57 (2) 2020
ISSN 0020-7985
This is an open access article under the terms of the
Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use,
distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the
original work is properly cited.
Finding sustainable ways to help re-empower children and youth is crucial to the future of Iraq.
As such, ensuring access to quality education for displaced children will form the cornerstone for
long-term stabilization efforts. Access to education during emergencies is not only considered a
human right but can also serve humanitarian aims. During times of crisis, schools can provide the
stability, structure and routine that children need to cope with conflict-induced loss and fear. Fur-
thermore, attending school can help protect children from risks, including gender-based violence,
recruitment into armed groups, child labour and early marriage.
Yet the delivery of emergency education has a two-way interaction with the promotion of stabil-
ity and conflict. Education provision can interact with debates over return, identity and equality,
each of which requires careful negotiation in the Iraqi context. If education interventions are not
sensitive to the conflict, the provision of schooling for displaced populations can become politicized
or feed into conflict narratives by creating resentment and division. It is, therefore, necessary to
understand the relationship between the crisis context and education delivery to ensure that educa-
tion minimizes negative impacts for displaced children in the KR-I. Unfortunately, while academic
recognition has been given to the political and sectarian dimensions of the Iraq crisis, the relation-
ship between these issues and emergency education provision has lacked rigorous analysis.
In this respect the article will explore the nexus between IDP education provision in the KR-I
and broader ethno-sectarian influences. It will demonstrate that the socio-political environment in
the north of Iraq necessitates concerted attention when providing education for IDPs in the KR-I.
By unpacking the central research question of: ‘In what ways does education for IDPs in KRI exac-
erbate or mitigate conflict?’the article will highlight key areas in which identity and politics have
hampered or constrained access to quality education for displaced populations.
The findings will be organized and presented in three central sections. Firstly, the article will
locate the research within the wider academic literature on education in conflict and emergencies. It
will then move on to provide the necessary contextual background to the current crisis and the pre-
existing issues of territorial dispute and ethnopolitics. The third section will present the findings on
the current state of emergency education provision in the KRI and the factors that require negotia-
tion to enable equitable access for all IDP communities.
EDUCATION IN EMERGENCIES
During displacement, educational opportunities are frequently one of the highest requested services
for communities. Dryden-Peterson (2011) notes that threecentral rationales underpin the provision
of education in emergencies. Firstly, education can form a component of the immediate response to
displacement, providing children with protection and serving as an entry point for psychosocial
support and referral mechanisms to highlight children at risk. The second rationale falls within a
human rights approach. Access to education is a fundamental human right recognized by the 1948,
theUniversalDeclarationofHumanRights; with subsequenttreatiesreaffirming the rights for
specific groups, such as girls, persons with disabilities, migrants, refugees and indigenous people;
as well as in specific contexts, such as during armed conflicts or after natural disasters. The impor-
tance of education is also articulated as an “enabling right,”a right through which other rights are
realized (UNHCR, 2011: 18); as such, education is framed as providing “skills that people need to
reach their full potential and to exercise their other rights, such as the right to life and health”
(INEE, 2010: 7).
The third rationale highlights education’s developmental focus. It acknowledges education as a
long-term investment for society. Education’s intersections with societies’social, economic, politi-
cal and security sectors leave it well placed to have far-reaching impacts across a range of conflict
stabilization and developmental objectives. Politically, educational governance provides the
Shanks 33
©2019 The Authors. International Migration published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of
International Organization for Migration
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