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U.S. to Remake School System In Postwar Iraq

By Mary Ann Zehr

As American forces were taking control of Baghdad last week, officials in the United States began putting into place the building blocks of a new campaign: restructuring the Iraqi school system.

The U.S. Agency for International Development was poised late last week to award contracts for devising a new curriculum and remaking the leadership of an education system that will serve the estimated one-half of Iraq's 24.5 million people who are under age 18. In addition, contracts were expected to be handed out to groups that will construct or rehabilitate an estimated 6,000 schools.

Experts on the Middle East caution that the job of rebuilding education in postwar Iraq will be a...