Teachers are the quiet heroes of Baghdad

The Observer carries a moving report of the delegation from the Iraqi Teachers Union which is currently in the UK as guests of the NASUWT. One says: We have no choice. We have to carry on living, we have to go out. These extremists want to stop life and the best thing to them is to stop us going to school and teaching the children. But if they stop that then everything will collapse. Teacher Mohamed Seed Hatem said the situation today ‘was still better than it was. A bloody dictatorship has gone.’