The special day marked the occasion of the establishment of the first school in the Kurdistan Region after the 1991 uprising. The school bell rang in a new academic era under Kurdish leadership.
The school building, located in the Ballakayaty region of Choman, near to the Iranian border, was housing scores of people displaced from the uprising. The Kurdish Front, assisted by international charitable organizations, renovated the building in 50 days, turning it into a school.
The Kurdish Front was the coalition of parties, including the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), that led both the military and political wings of the uprising.
The opening of the school marked the first time the Kurdish flag was raised at a school in Kurdistan.
Locals along with the Kurdish Front provided equipment to the school, and a sizeable number of diploma and bachelor’s degree holders volunteered to teach.
Ali Sharef, one of the volunteering teachers, told Rudaw that “Our work was for today’s Kurdistan and nationalistic feelings made us not to think of payment at the time.”
“We were overwhelmed with Kurdishness and nationalistic feelings such that very few were thinking of money. Our daily job was voluntary teaching. The only assistance, if we were ever getting it at all, was some food from the Kurdish Front, just like other troubled families, and we were bringing the food back to our kids. Other than that, we were not thinking of money.”
Khidir Mustafa was a member of the Kurdish Front. He told Rudaw, “We opened the first school in Kurdistan on October 29, 1991, and managed to begin with the process of teaching by December 23, 1991. The teachers had no salaries, but the motto of ‘we will not lower the lofty head to salary’ was held very high by the teachers. This is a source of pride for them from those days, and we are still proud of them.”
Following the opening of this school, other schools in other cities were opened in Kurdistan, and at the first Kurdish Teachers Congress in 1992, the 6th of October was chosen to be Teachers’ Day in the Kurdistan Region.
The school today is the Choman Basic Mixed School.
