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 October 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 US-appointed Governing Council is telling teachers that Saddam and his three decades of dictatorial rule are no longer study topics.

Best educational systems

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.

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 US-led invasion, the UN estimated that 80 percent of schools were unfit for use.

Ian SIMPSON