Every student to get a tablet and printed textbooks to end next year, minister says

BAGHDAD — Iraq plans to give every student a tablet and stop printing textbooks next year, Education Minister Abdul Karim Abtan al-Jubouri said Tuesday, announcing a move to digital learning and exams and saying the country is short of about 11,000 schools.

“We will give every student a tablet and abandon printing next year,” Jubouri told Iraq 24 TV, adding that parents would have to sign a pledge to replace devices their children damage. The ministry had already cut textbook printing costs from 191 billion dinars (about $126 million at the official rate) to 50 billion (about $33 million), he said, and curriculum updates could be distributed on discs costing 2,000 dinars each instead of new books. He did not give a timetable or say how the devices would be paid for. Even a low-cost tablet for each of the more than 12 million students in federal Iraq would cost well over $1 billion.

Exams will also move online, with questions sent to all students at once through a central system to prevent leaks, and the internet will not be cut during exams, Jubouri said, without explaining how. Iraq has routinely shut down internet access nationwide during national exams to stop cheating and the selling of exam papers on the morning they are to be sat. Ministry spokesperson Karim al-Sayyid said in September that about 80% of textbooks came from books returned by students from previous years.

Iraq has about 32,000 registered schools but only 19,000 complete school buildings with adequate facilities, Jubouri said, and needs another 11,000 schools; 102 schools still operate in mud buildings and 840 in prefabricated classrooms. The prime minister had allocated money to replace the mud schools, he said, questioning why some Education Ministry properties had been handed over for residential investment projects despite the shortage.