Christian Religious Education Abolished in Mosul and Nineveh Plain

Christian religious education in Mosul and the Nineveh Plain has been abolished, and Christian-named schools will also be changed to Islamic ones. The teaching of the Syriac language and culture will also be ended, according to Fides news agency.

These are some of the conditions imposed by the leaders of the self-proclaimed Islamic Caliphate with regards to educational institutions in Mosul and in the territories of the Province of Nineveh which have fallen under their control.

This is revealed by some local sources contacted by the information website in Arabic ankawa.com, Fides reports. The move is part of the conditions imposed by the militants of the Islamic State on the education system in order to erase all traces of cultural and religious pluralism in the conquered areas, and turn schools into propaganda tools of jihadist ideology.

Some of the educational institutions affiliated to churches, such as a school dedicated to St. Thomas, bore Christian names since the eighteenth century.

Last February, the Ministry of Education in Iraq had ordered that the Syriac language and the teaching of the Christian religion be introduced in the currucula of 152 public schools in the provinces of Baghdad, Nineveh and Kirkuk.

The pilot project was intended to preserve the native language of all the indigenous Christian religious communities that still exist in the country, marked in recent years by a drastic reduction in numbers due to the surge of migration flows recorded after the fall of the Baathist regime.

152 schools were selected in areas of the Country where there is a greater concentration of baptized Christians. According to data provided by the Directorate for the study of Syriac, the schools involved in the project are attended by more than 20,000. 

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Fides News Agency