Education and the market economy in Iraq, interdependence or repulsion?

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 Education and the market economy in Iraq, interdependence or repulsion?

 

https://annabaa.org/arabic/economicarticles/23744

 

Hamed Abdul-Hussein Al-Jubouri

 

Education plays an important and significant role in receiving or leaving any system, being; It is supposed to create the social environment necessary to receive it in order to interact with it as required, beginning and ending.

As education contributes to improving economic performance at the micro and macro levels alike, the economic unit managed by an educated person is, without a doubt, the best performance of the unit managed by an uneducated person, and this is reflected positively on the income level of the unit and the individuals working in it.

It also performs education; To reduce unemployment, as it is mostly the case, especially in economies that function properly; You find the percentage of people who get a job, whether in the public sector or the private sector, are the educated and not the uneducated, and this means reducing the size of unemployment, which is one of the indicators of the macro economy.

Interconnectedness or repulsion?

There is a strong correlation between education and the market economy. At a time when education supplies the market economy with the educated workforce, the market economy provides education with suitable job opportunities for that educated workforce. It is not a correlation and the effects are very bad.

This relationship can be examined, that is, is there a correlation or disharmony between education and the market economy in Iraq? Through the effects that occurred, especially after 2003, represented by the unemployment index.

Unemployment is the indicator through which we can clarify the extent of interconnectedness or repulsion of education and the market in Iraq, where it appears through unemployment, there is inconsistency or even blatant incompatibility between education and the market economy, as statistics indicate that the unemployment rate rises to more than 40%, including learners, and what The continuing demonstrations of graduates and holders of higher degrees in the capital, Baghdad and the provinces, to demand job opportunities except evidence of the high rate of unemployment, even among the educated!

The rise in unemployment in general and among the educated ranks does not mean that the shortcomings on the part of the market economy because it can not provide job opportunities even for the educated, but rather education is a partner in the shortcomings as well, and as we mentioned above, Then the relationship becomes a dissonance relationship, not an interconnectedness, and the effects are very bad.

Palaces of the two parties, education and the market

In other words, education focused on quantity without quality, and this means an increase in the number of graduates and holders of higher degrees without paying attention to the quality of outputs required by the market economy, which made the latter, which suffers mainly from weakness due to the state’s interference and the lack of space for it, is also violating its obligations Towards education, he was no longer able to provide job opportunities to employ these armies of graduates, the result was a high rate of unemployment and continued demonstrations to demand employment opportunities.

It can be said that the high unemployment rates in general demonstrate the failure of the economy more than education in providing job opportunities, and that the high unemployment rates among learners is evidence of the lack of education more than the economy in providing good outputs, since it focuses on quantity rather than quality, since Education was unable to focus on quality and the market economy, unable to provide job opportunities, and they became in stark dissonance, so the deficiencies of the two sides were not one party.

The shortcomings are the result of a long march

The shortcomings of education and the market economy did not come overnight, but rather as a result of a long historical march, which started from the Ottoman external occupation and ended with Saddam's internal tyranny, contributed to the consolidation of this deficiency in the depths of education and the market economy.

Given the close interdependence between the political system and the economic system on the one hand, and the political system and the educational system on the other hand, the result was in Iraq, which recently adopted a one-party political system, for a period of time not short. The economic and educational system is holistic in nature and can only be managed according to Central planning and what the single party and its leader see, which has entrenched the failure of both parties.

The state enters and the withdrawal falters

Managing the Iraqi economy centrally and according to what the single party sees for a long period of time, means the state’s direct intervention in the economy, and this has diminished the importance of the private sector, which represents the main driver of the market economy. The latter was weak and unable to provide employment quickly, in harmony with speed. the shift.

What has increased the weakness of the private sector even after 2003 is the failure of the state to withdraw from the economy, as it still has many elements of production and dominates the oil wealth and the banking system in a large way, and continues to place obstacles in front of the private sector. On these obstacles, the private sector and then the market economy became unable to provide jobs.

Employment and absence of modernization of education

Education previously was subject to central planning and was employed according to what the party and its leader saw, and this is what has made education dictated by the leader's ideas and ideas, and his focus on quantity rather than quality, because the party does not care about the quality of education outputs as long as the economy responsible for providing job opportunities, with his grip, can guide those Outputs wherever his priorities and his leader are required, not where society and its economy are required.

And with the end of the one-party system politically in 2003, the educational curricula and administration were not updated, but remained as it was, and this means that education retardation continues from bad to worse, and this is reflected in the educational outcomes, so its outputs were weak and did not have high skills through which it can To impose itself in the labor market, and thus a large portion of unemployment in Iraq has become the unemployment of educated people.

The bottom line

At a time when the relationship between education and the market economy should be a direct correlation relationship, it became clear through the unemployment index, that there is a blatant inconsistency relationship between them, and the reasons for its incompatibility, which were represented by the intervention of the state and the withdrawal of the state from the market economy, the employment of education and the absence of its modernization on the one hand, became clear. Education.

And after it became clear the disharmony between education and the market economy in Iraq, it became obligatory for those who want to restore the relationship between them to where they should be, to work on two points:

First: Addressing the state’s interference in the economy, not placing obstacles but rather overcoming them and fighting corruption so that the private sector takes its real role in the economy according to the principles of the market economy, such as private ownership, economic freedom, competition, and antitrust prevention.

Second: Keeping education away from politics, developing its management, and updating its curricula in a way that leads to improving the quality of its outputs, whether human resources or scientific research, and in line with the requirements of the market economy, and thus unemployment is slowly decreasing.

* Researcher at the Al Furat Center for Development and Strategic Studies / 2004-2020
www.fcdrs.com