BAGHDAD — Saif Abdul-Karim's path to school is often blocked by car bombings and gunbattles. Many of his teachers have quit. Most of his classmates have dropped out, fearing abduction.

As high school seniors across America giddily try on prom dresses and plan graduation parties, Iraqi students consider just making it to school a cause for celebration.

The security situation is so shaky that some schools have canceled graduation ceremonies, and many have closed for weeks at a time. Education officials are in talks with the security services, tribal leaders and politicians to ensure schools are protected when students take final exams next month.

The education crisis mirrors the breakdown of nearly all public institu- tions across Iraq.

Educators fear, however, that the collapse in schooling will have some of the deepest repercussions for the country, leaving a generation with little education and little hope.

"Iraq's future is at risk," said Waleed Hussein, the spokesman for the Education Ministry. "Its children are prevented from getting educated just as the country is in dire need of moving forward."

Abdul-Karim, a 17-year-old high school senior, senses his envy of American students deepening as the war in his homeland rages. "They can get and do many things, while here we are living in a tragedy," he said.

Students and educators in Baghdad and in other violence-plagued areas of the country tell harrowing stories of the challenges they face trying to reach graduation day.

Mustafa Ali, an 18-year-old student in Sadr City, says it is difficult for him to study at night — or even to sleep — because of the sound of explosions and gunfire in his Shiite neighborhood from clashes with U.S.-led forces or rival Sunni gangs.

Wajeda Ahmed, the principal of Dijlah primary school for girls in the mostly Sunni Mansour neighborhood of western Baghdad, said the school has no power or drinking water. Nearby roadside bombs and car bombs have damaged the school's doors and shattered many of its windows. About 25 percent of her students have left because their families have fled the violence, she said.

Mousa Halim, principal of a high school in Diwaniyah, 80 miles south of Baghdad, said a firefight several weeks ago between U.S. soldiers and the radical Shiite Mahdi Army militia outside the school sent students and teachers scrambling to take cover.

"The top priority was to send the students home without any casualties," he said. "We had to make them jump over the low wall at the back of the school instead of taking the risk of leaving from the main gate near the clashes."