Communication


The language of instruction, English, is a foreign language for the participating teachers. However, despite some initial obstacles, a clear improvement of language skills over the course of the project can be discerned. This may also be due to the fact that the teaching personnel being trained are quite young - between 22 and 27 years of age. Since almost none of the English teachers are native speakers and, as a result of the political situation, have never been to an English-speaking country, they have mostly acquired their skills through distance learning courses or TV. Their level of English is therefore all the more astonishing.

One should also not lose sight of the fact that we are also in a country that does not have a unified national language. Kurdish varies considerably in the many different regions, both in pronunciation, as well as in how it is written. This means that the Kurds themselves have difficulties to communicate with each other in their own country. Arabic is also not generally spoken as it is in other Arab countries. The primary foreign languages here are Iranian (Sorany) and Turkish.


Equipment


Here, particularly positive trends can be seen. The training rooms in Sulemania, for example, have been equipped with 64-bit computers and LCD monitors and therefore can certainly be compared with systems in the West.


Of course, the equipment of the individual institutes very much depends on the available budget. Due to the chaos of war in the past 20-25 years, many people of "nearly adult" age are still attending primary school, which means that there can be great age differences in classes. Most of the budget is invested in new buildings. University cities, such as Sulaimania and Erbil, certainly have better options available.

This can also be said of the hardware. All of the schools have been very well equipped, with the exception of Duhok where, however, things are also moving along, since the existing buildings will be too small for the next school year. WLAN is standard everywhere, even if the connection is extremely slow (max. 25 kb/s).


Our task here is primarily to create a consciousness for maintenance, since the climatic conditions and poor energy supply, although improving, still cause many devices to malfunction. UPS is pure luxury here, and the "Made in China" devices do not last very long.


Electricity


Electricity from the public grid is only assured for five to eight hours per day. Generators are necessary for the remaining time. It is only due to the great flexibility of the trainers that it is possible under these adverse conditions to assure a practical transfer of knowledge. Unfortunately, there is still no consistent supply of electricity during normal office hours. This means that all schools are dependent on electricity from generators, and it can happen that they run out of fuel. It is truly admirable how the teachers and students deal with this situation.

In this case, theoretical EDP is taught using a book and whiteboard. For server-based solutions on a network however, this is still a big problem.

Environment: Teachers and learners are subject to extreme temperatures of 45° - 50° in summer. It is a clear sign of the victory of mind over body that teaching and learning still take place under these conditions. Of course people and machines still suffer under these temperatures and the ability to concentrate sinks rapidly.

In addition, the general daily maximum number of work hours is four. This means that to add on six hours of bit training after the lessons, the level of motivation must be extremely high.

Family ties are very important in Kurdistan, so it is not uncommon for teachers, particularly the female instructors, to miss a lesson due to family obligations. Furthermore, women in particular have hardly any time to do work for the school at home.

When all of these factors are taken into consideration and understanding for them is shown, the human and structural developments since the first project in 2006 have been enormous. It is absolutely remarkable to see the enthusiasm and commitment with which these new ideas have been accepted and implemented step by step against all local cultural standards of behaviour.