Facing dismissal or expulsion if they do not attend classes, many Iraqi professors and students have resorted to traveling to campus in disguise, hoping to appear uneducated and avoid sectarian violence, The Charlotte Observer reported.
Earlier this month, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki ordered students and professors back to class. His aides say a collapse of the university system would threaten the government and the nation.
But academics complain that the order ignores the realities of university life in Iraq: Armed gangs have taken over buildings, death threats have been posted, thousands of students have requested transfers to campuses where their sects — Sunni Muslim or Shiite Muslim — are in the majority, and thousands of professors and students have fled Iraq to pursue their studies elsewhere.
A human-rights group reported six months ago that academics and other intellectuals in Iraq were the targets of “a coordinated liquidation process” that had resulted in the murders of hundreds of them.
In early December, private universities enjoyed the highest attendance level: 59 percent. At Baghdad University, only 6 percent of student and professors attended, according to the article.
