Transportation, Communication, and Education
A network of highways and railroads between the major cities and the outlying provinces has aided Iraq's development as a modern, industrial society. Pipelines for oil exports run to the Mediterranean Sea and Turkey, and to the port of Basra. In 1914 Iraq had only two main roads, one from Baghdad across the desert to Al Fallujah on the Euphrates and the other, used mainly for produce, from Mosul to Mardin, Turkey. Roads and railways were built to meet the transportation needs of the Allied forces during the two world wars. These became the nucleus of the nation's present system, which includes more than 23,800 miles (38,300 kilometers) of paved roads and about 1,500 miles (2,400 kilometers) of track. Iraq's railroad connections run through Syria, Turkey and Europe. In the mid-1980s about 491,800 passenger cars and 246,700 commercial vehicles were in use. International airports serve Baghdad and Al Basrah. Al Basrah, on the Shatt al Arab, and Umm Qasr are the main ports for oceangoing vessels, and river steamers are able to navigate the Tigris from Al Basrah to Baghdad.
About 886,000 telephones were in use in Iraq in the mid-1980s; radios in the early 1990s numbered about 4 million and televisions about 1.4 million. A government decree of 1967 closed all privately owned daily newspapers. The country had nine dailies in the early 1990s; ath-Thawra, issued by the Baath political party, is one of the country's largest Arabic newspapers, with a circulation of 250,000.
Education is controlled and subsidized by the government at all levels, and women are encouraged to attend school through the university level. Before World War I most schools were part of the neighborhood mosques. During the British occupation of Iraq from 1917 to 1932, the English curriculum became the model. Instruction has become even more westernized since the establishment of the republic in 1958.
Six years of primary education are compulsory, but many children in rural areas do not attend schools because facilities are not available. Instruction is in the Arabic language, although Kurdish is used in primary schools in some northern districts. Only about 60 percent of Iraqis aged 15 or older are literate. In the early 1990s about 3.3 million pupils attended elementary schools annually, and some 1 million students were enrolled in secondary schools. In addition, about 185,450 students attended vocational or teacher-training institutions. Iraq has seven universities, three in Baghdad and one each in Al Basrah, Irbėl, Mosul, and Tikrėt. The University of Baghdad, founded in 1957, had campuses in Basra and Mosul that became separate universities in 1964 and 1967, respectively. The country also has about 20 technical institutes. Approximately 209,800 students were enrolled in institutions of higher education in the late 1980s.