performance of Higher Education Institutions in Iraq and key recommendations

The Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in developing countries are challenged by rapid technological change and increased demand on skilled and qualified workforce. (HEIs) involve universities, colleges, institutes, research centers. These activities should be worked out together in order to access to the progress in the daily life and for an institute to be successful. Thus, HEIs is an essential tool at transforming societies by educating leaders, decision makers, entrepreneurs and academic stuffs. It is widely accepted that a sustainable and healthy economic development is no longer depending on the natural resources, but also on the human resources, their knowledge and skills Therefore, there are serious concerns about the decline in educational levels in Iraq. There is no doubt that Higher education and scientific research are lag behind the higher education of the world, this is because of several issues such as; centralized education system which is a remnant of the previous regime, old teaching method, inconsistent curricula, poor efficiency of management of Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research (MHESR). All these issues influence the knowledge product and weaken the university’s participation in the building of society. The main objectives of this study are to examine the pattern of Education System (ES) in Iraq and its characteristics. Then, it critically reviews the performance of Higher Education and Scientific Research (HESR) in Iraq and Kurdistan region in last three decades. This study also identifies the current challenges confronting Iraq’s Higher Education and its institutions. Eventually, based on these discussions, key recommendations are provided to conclude. Due to data limitation, this research has adopted a qualitative method.