Education in Yazidi Collective Towns: Curriculum Changes under Ba’athist Rule

This entry is part of a scholarly encyclopedia that documents the historical development of minority education, focusing here on Yazidi collective towns during Iraq’s Ba’athist period.

Education in Yazidi Collective Towns (Kurmanji: Perwerdeya Gundên Hevparêzên Êzîdî) denotes the formal schooling system established in the clustered settlements (gundên hevparêz) where Yazidis lived together for mutual protection and cultural continuity. Between 1972 and 1985, the Ba’athist state imposed sweeping curriculum reforms that altered language of instruction, religious content, and civic orientation.

Pronunciation & orthography

The term appears in three scripts: Latin‑based Kurmanji Perwerdeya Gundên Hevparêzên Êzîdî, Arabic script پروەردەیا گوندێن ھەڤپەڕێزێن ئێزیدی, and Cyrillic used by some diaspora scholars Первердея Гунден Хевпарезен Эзиди. IPA: /pɛɾˈwɛɾdɛja ˈɡundɛn hɛvpaˈɾeːzɛn ˈeːziːdi/. Common English misspellings include “Yazidi” vs. “Ezidi” and “Hevparêz” vs. “Hevparez”.

Main exposition

Ba’athist Educational Policy (1972‑85)

The Ba’ath Party, consolidating power after the 1968 coup, launched an Arabization drive aimed at forging a monolingual Arab national identity. In 1972 the Ministry of Northern Affairs reported intimidation of Kurdish families to shift children to Arabic schools (Kurdish Academy, 1972)【4】. By May 1973 a decree cancelled Kurdish teaching in schools of Ainkawa, a town with a substantial Yazidi population, signaling the regime’s intent to extend Arabization to all minority‑majority border zones【4】.

Arabization and Language Shift

Curricula were rewritten to foreground Arabic language, Arab history, and Sunni‑Islamic civic values, while Kurdish‑language textbooks were withdrawn. The policy targeted primary and secondary levels, where most Yazidi children received their first formal education. The removal of Kurdish instruction disrupted the inter‑generational transmission of the Yazidi oral tradition, which traditionally relies on Kurmanji as the medium of religious poetry (qewl) and communal law.

Impact on Yazidi Collective Towns

Yazidi collective towns—clusters such as Sinjar’s Qazî, Jazeera, and the Sheikhan villages—saw their local schools either Arabized or shuttered. In the Sinjar region, home to roughly 500,000 Yazidis (Middle East Institute, 2008)【2】, the Ba’athist reforms coincided with the broader marginalisation of the community, limiting access to culturally relevant education. The closure of Kurdish schools in Ainkawa (110 schools in Nineveh and Dahok provinces) exemplifies the systematic reduction of Yazidi‑Kurdish educational infrastructure【4】.

Resistance and Adaptation

Yazidi community leaders responded by establishing informal “kurdî” circles in homes, where elders taught children the Kurdish alphabet and recited qewl. These clandestine sessions preserved religious literacy despite official bans. Later diaspora studies note that such grassroots education contributed to the resilience of Yazidi identity during displacement (Kokaisl et al., 2022)【1】.

Post‑Ba’athist Legacy

The 1991 Gulf War and the 2003 US‑led invasion dismantled many Ba’athist institutions, allowing a partial revival of Kurdish‑language schooling in Yazidi areas. However, the decade‑long interruption left gaps in literacy rates and created a generation whose formal education was conducted primarily in Arabic, influencing contemporary debates on curriculum reform and cultural restoration.

“Teaching in Kurdish should be cancelled at the schools of Ainkawa,” declared the Revolutionary Command Council in May 1973 (Kurdish Academy, 1973)【4】.

In the oral tradition

Yazidi oral literature repeatedly underscores the centrality of education for communal survival. A well‑known qewl states: “The tongue that learns the word of the Lord shall never be silenced.” This verse, recited in village gatherings, was invoked during the Arabization period to justify clandestine teaching sessions. The qewl, preserved in the Qewlê Perwerde, illustrates the community’s belief that religious knowledge must be transmitted in the native tongue.

“Bê zimanê kurdî, perwerdeya me di navê Xwedê re nebe,” (Without the Kurdish language, our education in the name of God is impossible) (oral tradition, cited in Kokaisl et al., 2022)【1】.

Scholarly disagreement

Kokaisl argues that the Ba’athist Arabization, while severe, did not entirely eradicate Kurdish‑language instruction because informal community schools persisted (Kokaisl et al., 2022)【1】. Maisel, however, emphasizes that state‑mandated curriculum changes effectively eliminated public Kurdish teaching, leading to a measurable decline in literacy among Yazidis during the 1970s‑80s (Maisel, 2008)【2】.

Common misconceptions

Regional variation

In Sinjar, the Arabization drive was most intensive because of the region’s strategic location and large Yazidi population. In Sheikhan, where Kurdish‑Yazidi co‑habitation was denser, local peshmerga authorities sometimes shielded schools from full Arabization. Across the Syrian border, Yazidi villages experienced milder Arabization, as Syrian Ba’athist policies focused more on Arab‑Syrian identity than Kurdish language. Turkish Yazidi communities, already under Turkification, faced parallel language suppression but differed in that secular Turkish curricula replaced religious instruction entirely. In the diaspora (Germany, Sweden), Yazidi schools revived Kurdish‑language curricula after 1990, reflecting the diaspora’s role in cultural reconstruction (Kokaisl et al., 2022)【1】.

Timeline

Data table

Notes:

1. Based on Kurdish Academy archival reports of school closures (1972‑1975)【4】.
2. Official Ba’athist decree mandating Arabic instruction (May 1973)【4】.
3. Post‑1991 NGO and peshmerga data on school reopening (Maisel, 2008)【2】.