IRAQ: Directorate of Syriac Studies delegation visits Ankawa district governor, Director General Imad Jajo meets Education Minister

ANKAWA / BAGHDAD – A delegation of the General Directorate of Syriac Studies met with the Ankawa district governor Rami Nuri Siawash. The friendly visit came about after Rami Nuri Siawash’s recent appointment to district governor of the Chaldean-Syriac-Assyrian town of Ankawa, a suburb of Erbil in northern Iraq.

The delegation included directors and policy officers of the General Directorate of Syriac Study at the Iraqi Ministry of Educations Nizar Hanna Boutros, Sabah Antoine, Behnam Shaba, and Nader Moshe. The Directorate of Syriac studies delegation congratulated Rami Nuri Siawash with his new duties and discussed with him topics related to the region, migration, the position of the Chaldean-Syriac-Assyrian people and the Syriac language. District governor Siawash thanked the visiting delegation for their warm congratulations and stressed the need of cooperation in order to meet the demands of the Iraqi people in general and the Chaldean-Syriac-Assyrian people in particular.

In related context, the Director General of the Syriac Studies Directorate Imad Salem Jajo, met his supervisor Minister of Education Ali Hamid Mikhlif at the Ministry of Education in Baghdad. Director General Emad Salem Jajo gave a status update on the latest Syriac language examination process for preparatory studies at schools in the Nineveh Governate and Nineveh Plain and came with proposals and new initiatives to develop the work of the Directorate General of Syriac Study.

The visit to the Minister comes after a meeting last week organized by the Directorate General of Syriac Studies where the functional performance of Syriac studies and its teaching cadres was evaluated. Director General Emad Salem Jajo, Assistant Director General Nidal Matti, Director of Supervision and Training Florence Behnam, General Directorate official Ilham Jassim, and a number of other of the Directorate’s officials assessed teaching methods, Syriac study material, and planned for new initiatives for the development of old-school and new electronic courses for teachers of Syriac language and Christian education.

In Iraq, Arabic and Kurdish are the two official languages. Syriac is a recognized language and is taught at schools in areas with a larger Chaldean-Syriac-Assyrian presence. The Directorate of Syriac Studies is part of the Iraqi Ministry of Education and is tasked with the official organization of the Syriac language curriculum, educating teachers, setting up Syriac study plans etc.