News Stories - Iraqi children go back to school
 
Under Saddam most Iraqi schools became desperately run-down. Now the US-led coalition is running a massive programme to rebuild and refurbish. It's still underway, but as the new school year starts, more than a thousand schools are finished.

Textbooks are being overhauled too. UN agencies are printing more than seventy-million new books which omit references to Saddam Hussein and his ideology. Until they're ready schools will use old books with political passages simply blacked out.

Children will no longer have to start the school day chanting Saddam's praises. But many may not attend at all. Some parents say they're so worried about the security situation they'd rather keep their children at home until the country is more stable.
 
- vocabulary:
run-down: in a very poor condition
coalition: a group of different organisations or people who are working together with a particular aim
refurbish: to clean and make more up-to-date
finished: here, completed

textbooks: books used in schools or by students
overhauled: improved, refurbished
ideology: set of beliefs

blacked out: here, covered up with black ink, so that they cannot be read


chanting Saddam's praises: if you chant someone's praises you repeat words which support them

they'd rather: they prefer to
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