If you want to be a good engineer, you’ll have to go to Germany.” Ahmed Al-Mudhafar from Iraq remembers his father’s advice very well. “After my Master’s at the university in Baghdad, it was my dream to do a doctorate in Germany.” The 28-year-old student has now taken a big step towards his goal. He arrived in Germany in mid-June – as one of 31 students from Iraq chosen to be the first participants in a new scholarship programme. From October 2009 onwards they will be studying for their Master’s or PhD at a German institution of higher education. The scholarships are part of a new agreement between the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and the Iraqi Ministry of Education, which will each pay half of the costs. Up to 100 Iraqi Master’s and PhD students are to benefit from the programme every year. The academic partnership, part of a programme for Iraq set up by the Federal Foreign Office, covers a broader package of support measures for academic reconstruction. Another important element, in addition to the new scholarships, is a university partnership programme. The long-term goal is the foundation of a German-Iraqi University.
At the moment, however, Ahmed Al-Mudhafar and his fellow Iraqi students Hussein Al-Hashimi and Mohan Hassan Aleatbi are more concerned with the present. After taking an online German course, they are currently learning German together at a language school in Frankfurt, but in a few weeks they will go their own separate ways. To complete their Master’s or doctorate, the three young engineers will be moving on to the Technical University in Munich, Erlangen-Nuremberg University and Siegen University – where they will perhaps meet other DAAD scholarship holders from Iraq. After all, independently of the new programme, more than 100 students and researchers from Iraq are already receiving DAAD scholarships to study in Germany.
One of them is Lamya Yousif. The 30-year-old woman from Iraq studied medicine in Baghdad and then worked in a hospital. At the end of 2004 she came to the University of Mainz. “Germany has a good reputation as a country to study. That’s why I wanted to continue my academic training here.” In 2007 she completed her European Master of Science in Epidemiology – and is now working on her doctorate at the renowned Institute for Epidemiology at the University Hospital in Mainz. “Epidemiology is an important subject. We examine the causes and effects of diseases.” Lamya Yousif wants to return to Iraq after completing her doctorate. Her medical knowledge will be in demand: diseases – for example, caused by environmental pollution – are a special risk in a country that has suffered a long war.
Academic cooperation is also taking place with Afghanistan, where Germany is supporting civil reconstruction within the framework of the Federal Government’s Afghanistan Strategy. Since 2002 the Institute for Development Research and Development Policy (IEE) at the Ruhr University in Bochum has been steadily expanding cooperation with support from the DAAD and funding from the Afghanistan Stability Pact. The IEE has built up a large number of contacts in Afghanistan over the years and is above all involved in the professional training of economics lecturers. It is supporting the reconstruction of departments of economics and management at several universities in Afghanistan with whom it has drawn up Bachelor’s and Master’s programmes in these subjects.
A new project was launched at Erfurt University in December 2008. Afghan professionals between the ages of 25 and 35 are participating in a Master’s programme in public policy, a unique study project initiated by the Federal Foreign Office and the DAAD. At the end of 2008 the first group of 15 students began the programme at the Erfurt School of Public Policy (ESPP) where they are learning how good governance can succeed. The study programme has been organized over three years: a preparatory year of intensive German language courses followed by a two-year English-language Master of Public Policy programme with a special emphasis on conflict management. The Afghans and their fellow students from all over the world will examine subjects in the fields of politics, economics and public administration.
“They will be learning, for example, how an administration can deal with corruption or the issue of drugs and what solution strategies are available,” explains Professor Dietmar Herz, director of the ESPP. This important knowledge can contribute to stabilizing the young democracy and open up a variety of career prospects for the course participants. Mohammad Hossain Torabi likes the idea of working at an Afghan university: “I want to work as a lecturer, because many universities lack well-trained teachers,” says the student, who already has work experience in the banking sector. What he finds particularly interesting about the ESPP Master’s programme is its combination of business and politics, and he also likes the conditions for studying in Erfurt: a high academic standard, a wide choice of literature, sociable fellow students and a pleasant town. Torabi also wants to continue using his economic knowledge when he returns to Afghanistan – for example, in a wind energy project for his home region around Herat. The experience he gains in Germany could enable him to advance this project and thus make a contribution to the future of his country.
