TENS OF THOUSANDS of Iraqi children residing in the Kingdom were able to join Jordanian peers at public schools for the first day of the school year Sunday.

Jordan has recently dropped a residency requirement to accept at least 40,000 Iraqi children, for the first time since they fled their homeland, amid concerns that the wave of new students could overburden the system.

In the past, Iraqi children could only attend government schools if the family had a residency permit or they were sent to a private school - a serious strain on the finances of the many of the estimated 750,000 Iraqis hosted by Jordan.

“I am so happy to be able to go to school today,” beamed 10-year-old Iraqi Mustafa Maher, sporting a white T-shirt and red schoolbag, as he walked through the gates of the Rashid Tlei Public School in Amman.

Maher and his fellow Iraqi classmate Ali Abdul Jabar, 13, arrived in Amman last year, but only now, following a government decision earlier this month, they are able to go to school.

“I feel like I’ve entered the gates of my old school in Baghdad,” Abdul Jabar told the Associated Press wistfully.

Like the other Iraqis in Jordan, he fled the spiralling violence in his homeland in the wake of the 2003 US-led war on Iraq.

“I bought my school stationery and a bag more than a week ago in preparation for this day,” said 16-year-old Ali Jawari, whose cash-strapped parents were in the process of moving him from a private school to a public one.

“I’m excited to be going to a public school, I feel learning there is better for me. I will meet pupils I can really communicate with,” Ali told Agence France-Presse.

His father, Dhiaa Jawari, said he appreciated Jordan’s decision to allow Iraqi pupils into state schools because “it took into consideration our humanitarian situation and economic hardship”.

The 52-year-old Sunni fled the violence in Iraq to Jordan two years ago, and spent $2,400 last year to put Ali and his younger son Taha into a private school.

“Tuition in state schools will cost me only $140 a year for each child,” he said.

Jawari had a thriving car dealership in Baghdad but lost it when he fled his country after receiving repeated death threats from militiamen.

Jordan and Syria host the largest proportion of more than two million displaced Iraqis and complain of the increasing burden on their health and education infrastructures. Smaller numbers of Iraqis are sheltered in Lebanon, Egypt and Turkey.

Education Ministry official Mohammad Okour said upon the announcement of the decision that at least 50,000 Iraqi students were expected to flood school system across Jordan.

But Minister of Education and Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research Khalid Touqan estimated the number in a statement yesterday at 40,000.

Okour said to address overcrowded facilities, a two-shift system involving morning and afternoon classes would be instituted in areas where Iraqi population concentrates.

One teacher at Rashid Tlei Public School in Shmeisani, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject, expressed concern about the influx of new students.

“We already have limited resources,” he said. “I don’t know if we will be able to cope with the addition of the Iraqi pupils.”

Of the 750 students starting the term, 100 are expected to be Iraqis, he told AP.

The Education Ministry has estimated that a single student at elementary, secondary or vocational schools in the Kingdom costs the government an average of JD1,000 per year.

The Iraqi guests cost the country $1 billion in total annually, officials said.

Last month, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the UN children’s fund (UNICEF) issued an appeal for $129 million to send 155,000 Iraqi children in Jordan, Syria, Egypt and Lebanon to school.

The AP quoted Okour as saying that registration for Iraqi students was continuing in some areas of Jordan, particularly east Amman, Zarqa and the northern town of Irbid.

Despite the new ruling, some Iraqi children still couldn’t attend school.

Seif Hussein, a 16-year-old boy from Baghdad, said he couldn’t register because he lacked the needed paperwork from his previous school to sign up.

“What can I do?” he asked. “Militants took over my family’s house and we fled, leaving behind my school documents.”

As 1.6 million Jordanian students gathered in morning assemblies, a letter from King Abdullah was read out to them.

The King urged the education establishment to aptly shoulder its “historical responsibilities” and rise to the complicated challenges facing Jordan.

He said that education lies at the core of efforts to fight extremism and negative rejection of other cultures.

“We are looking at educational institutions to protect Jordanians from sliding into” extremist and rejectionist thought and ensure that children are brought up in a way to exercise sound judgement and rational thinking.

Students, the Monarch said, should be taught how to respect others’ opinions, embrace innovation and positive change.

“We in Jordan are keen on achieving a revival and positive change and entrenching the principles of participation [in public life], justice, equal opportunity and tolerance,” the Monarch said.