Mohammed Taif broke into a smile at the thought of going back to school next week, for the first academic year in Iraq with Saddam Hussein strictly off the curriculum.

"I'm ready and I want to get back," said the 10-year-old during a break in a noisy street soccer game. "All my friends are there -- we can play, and I like to study."

The pupil at Baghdad's Sayf ibn Thayza primary school will be among an estimated 4.5 million children who will head back to classes on Wednesday (Oct 1) for what Iraq's new rulers hope is a fresh start for a crippled system.

Pictures of the deposed Iraqi president and all references to him have been erased from millions of new textbooks. The U.S.-appointed Governing Council is telling teachers that Saddam and his three decades of dictatorial rule are no longer study topics.

Fuad Hussein, an adviser to the new-look Education Ministry, said the start of school was a sign that life was getting back to normal despite widespread violence ranging from car bombs to street crime.

"This will be the first year where people will be starting the year without Saddam Hussein, without singing songs to Saddam Hussein and worshipping Saddam Hussein," said Hussein, a one-time dissident back from self-imposed exile in the Netherlands.

POLITICAL INDOCTRINATION

Until the 1990s oil-rich Iraq had one of the best educational systems in the Middle East. But following the 1991 Gulf War, Saddam's government used classrooms for political indoctrination and schools suffered under more than a decade of United Nations sanctions.

Even before this year's U.S.-led invasion, the U.N. estimated that 80 percent of schools were unfit for use. The war, sabotage and looting have reduced electric power to a few hours a day and cut water to many schools.

The Education Ministry has also suffered. Looters set fire to the ministry building in the chaos following Saddam's overthrow in April, destroying its records.

Dozens of top officials were sacked for their links to Saddam's Baath Party, leaving the ministry rudderless. The new education minister, Alladin Alwan, was appointed with the rest of the cabinet only at the start of September.

Staff said many schools still had some way to go.

"We're ready for school, but the building isn't. I'm going to find it very hard to open," said headmistress Fadiya Ibrahim Abdul Wahhab as she toured the battered Al-Mansur Al-Ta'sisiya primary school.

Looters stripped the one-time model school, making off with computers, printers, air conditioners, fans, desks, refrigerators and television sets. Even the science laboratory's model skeleton was stolen, and windows and doors were smashed.

During the summer break, a shoot-out during an attack on the nearby headquarters of Ahmad Chalabi, current head of the Governing Council, holed the school's walls with bullets.

NO WORD ON REPAIRS

Abdul Wahhab said she had no textbooks and had not heard from the ministry about repairs. She and her eight teachers were relieved they no longer had to teach politics to their 2,000 students.

"I'm glad to get rid of the repetitive slogans that were pro-Baath," she said. "We're academics, not politicians."

Like many parents, Salman Alwan, a 48-year-old taxi driver, said he was more concerned about security than about the state of the classrooms or what his children would learn.

"I'm worried about the security situation, the economic situation and how we can afford new bags and clothes for them," said the father of three children aged seven to 11. "But the top concern is security."

As part of Washington's efforts to rebuild the system, the U.S. Agency for International Development is paying to renovate 1,000 of Iraq's 10,000 school buildings by the start of class.

Washington also is bankrolling a rise in teachers' base pay from about $8 a month to $60 and instruction for teachers in up-to-date classroom techniques. The first group of more than 100 teachers, principals and supervisors graduated from the course last week.

"You can't do this in a one-shot deal. Change is a process," said Leslye (eds. correct) Arsht, a senior adviser to the Education Ministry from the Coalition Provisional Authority, the U.S.-led administration.

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