I was born in Northern Iraq, Kurdistan in 1987. I grew up and studied there until year seven. Although I managed to complete seven years of my education life, I frankly didn't benefit from it at all. This is maybe because of the fact that I studied in a different language to what I am speaking now.

Since we were kids we had to pursue the lifestyle whether we liked it or not. The education we received was nothing compared to what we have in Australia. As a consequence I am privileged to be given the opportunity to reside in this heavenly land - Australia.

My primary school years would start every day with a 'school assembly' where we had to make a line in front of our form classes, faced by our teachers. Our Headmaster would watch over us like we were about to take off in a minute. Our teachers would come and fully 'investigate' us, to check on our uniforms. Some kids would get caught and beaten for keeping their nails long or wearing jewelry.

Next we would have to sing our national anthem, 'Ay Raqib' ('Oh Enemy'). If anyone broke any rules, they were pulled out by their arm, humiliated and caned on their palms by the Headmaster. Later they were made to clean the school and were then sent home.

This set of rules were apparently laid down by the previous regime - Saddam's. The whole country had to abide by their rules or else they would be 'gassed as a nation'.

In a classroom of 40 to 50 students we had to sit in pairs, girls on one side and boys on the other. We were told to fold our arms, with our forefingers on our lips, an indication to show that we were obedient.

We had to remain like that unless permitted by our teacher to speak. If anyone disobeyed he or she were made to stand up in front of his/her classmates and were bullied by the teacher. If you expressed resentment your punishment was harsher, and if the class spoke out for you everyone would get the same treatment.

One of the almost impossible things that we were supposed to do was to memorise all of our books. Every student had to have everything memorised word by word, covering all of their subjects. The compulsory subjects were Arabic, English, religion, science, geography, math, history and art.

My favourite was English classes. Our English teachers always seemed nicer and happier. For some reason we just enjoyed doing the 'Good morning Mr. Brown' and 'How do you do Mr. Smith' dialogues repeatedly. Our Arabic teachers were the meanest. Even though Arabic was not even our language, we had to learn it.

Most of our texts contained information that praised Saddam Hussein and his regime. So you can imagine why most kids disliked school. Some depended on prayers for their exams, while others hesitated and had to be dragged into their examination.

When I was a child I used to dream of owning my own bike. Then one day we arrived in Australia and the first thing I got was a bike. But once I had it, I didn't know how to take care of it, and it got broken. It was then I realised that I had not been appreciative. So my advice is that we should be grateful for what we own and appreciate what we have in Australia.

This article was first published in the Youth central website.   http://www.youthcentral.vic.gov.au/ViewPage.action?&repositoryName=&siteNodeId=515&CurrentFolderID=1966&ItemID=10401