Rawabit Partnership Scheme And Educational Reform In Iraq

EDM number 1826 in 2010-12, proposed by Robert Halfon on 18/05/2011.
Categorised under the topics of Education and Iraq.

That this House welcomes the visit to the UK by Dr Mahmood Shaker Abdulhussain, President of the Iraqi Foundation of Technical Education, and Dr Kawthar Aziz Ahmed, President of the Erbil Foundation of Technical Education; notes that the Rawabit partnership scheme between Iraqi and British educationalists has since 2004 successfully supported long overdue and badly needed educational reform in Iraq in a sector able to have an immediate impact on the local labour market; further notes that Rawabit has organised technical and further education college twinning links, including practical immersion and work-shadowing programmes in the UK, to 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; recognises that Rawabit has engaged with over 600 individual practitioners in 60 technical colleges across Iraq, nurtured significant changes in leadership practice, with greater devolved management, and increased the availability of vocational skills through programmes for the unemployed and former prisoners and militia members; believes that this helps Iraqi colleges to play a bigger role in social cohesion and economic regeneration; and urges the Government to continue its funding for a respected project which both benefits the democratic renewal of Iraq and bolsters mutually beneficial connections between the Iraqi and British education sectors.

This motion has been signed by a total of 5 MPs.