From CounterPunch
By Kathy Kelly

Last weekend was an important one, regarding education, here in Jordan. Jordanian high school students learned the results of exams qualifying them (or not) for University studies. Television news showed students – among the 52% who passed – dancing for joy. And, King Abdullah announced that Jordan will open its public schools to Iraqi students under fifteen years of age. Along with this news came a UNHCR request for $129 million in funding to help provide schooling for Iraqi children living in neighboring countries, especially Jordan and Syria.

I hope this will be good news for several of Abu Mahmoud’s children who have already missed three years of school. Abu Mahmoud came to Jordan three years ago, after assailants attacked him while he was driving home from his job, in Kirkuk, Iraq. He has pictures of his bullet-ridden car. Having narrowly escaped, he and the family moved into a dingy apartment in Amman, Jordan. Since then, none of his children have attended school. He begged the authorities at one school to permit his oldest son, Mahmoud, to just sit in the classroom and listen, but it wasn’t allowed.

With the government’s new ruling, Mahmoud and his brothers, Ahmed and Ali, may be able to gain admission and perhaps even some remedial help in a Jordanian school. Their sister, Najima, is sixteen years old. It seems that the new ruling won’t open classrooms to children over fifteen years of age. Although Najima has missed formal schooling for the past three years, she experienced a very unusual kind of education during two of these years. Slight and quite beautiful, Najima worked in a printing factory, ten hours a day five days a week, for very little money, making books instead of reading them. The paper-cutting machine she operated was much larger than she is, and I asked her if she ever had trouble with it. “No!” she replied, “Never! And I learned how to lift very heavy loads.” She’s proud of her skill, and should be.

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