Education in Afghanistan

Education in the Afghanistan was significantly improved under the rule of King Zahir Shah (from 1933 to 1973), [http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/profiles/Afghanistan.pdf Afghanistan country profile] . Library of Congress Federal Research Division (May 2006). "This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.] making primary schools available to about half the population who were younger than 12 years of age, and expanding the secondary school system and the national university at Kabul.Fact|date=March 2008 Despite those improvements, large percent of the population remained illiterate. Beginning with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, successive wars virtually destroyed the education system. Most teachers fled the country during the wars. By the middle of the 1990s, only about 650 schools were functioning.

In 1996 the Taliban regime banned education for females, and the madrassa (mosque school) became the main source of primary and secondary education. After the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001, the interim government received substantial international aid to restore the education system. In 2003 some 7,000 schools were operating in 20 of the 34 provinces, with 27,000 teachers teaching 4.2 million children (including 1.2 million girls). Of that number, about 3.9 million were in primary schools. When Kabul University reopened in 2002, some 24,000 students, male and female, enrolled. Five other universities were being rehabilitated in the early 2000s. Since the end of the dogmatic Taliban era in 2001, public school curricula have included religious subjects, but detailed instruction is left to religious teachers. In 2003 an estimated 57 percent of men and 86 percent of women were illiterate, and the lack of skilled and educated workers was a major economic disadvantage.

By 2006, over 4 million male and female students were enrolled in schools throughout Afghanistan. At the same time school facilities or institutions were also being improved, with more modern-style schools being built each year.

However, there are still significant obstacles to education in Afghanistan, many of which stem from a lack of funding. Planning curricula and school programs is difficult for the Ministry of Education because a significant amount of the budget for education comes from varying external donors each year, making it difficult to predict what the annual budget will be. Mojumdar,Aunohita: "Afghan Schools' Money Problems", BBC News, 2007. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/6533379.stm] ] The obstacles to education are even more numerous for Afghan girls. Afghanistan's Education Minister, Hanif Atmar, said in 2007 that 60% of students were studying in tents or other unprotected structures, and some Afghan parents refused to let their daughters attend schools in such conditions. A lack of women teachers is another issue that concerns some Afghan parents, especially in more conservative areas. Some parents will not allow their daughters to be taught by men. But this often means that girls are not allowed to attend school, as the international aid agency Oxfam reported in 2007 that at that time only about one quarter of Afghan teachers were women.

Ongoing criticism of the coeducation of girls and boys

In 2003 Fazl Hadi Shinwari, then Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Afghanistan, spoke out against co-education -- the education of boys and girls in shared facilities -- while clarifying that he did not object to the education of girls and women in priciple, just not in facilities shared with men and boys. [cite news
url=http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1568/is_1_35/ai_99933023?tag=artBody;col1
title=Fazl Hadi Shinwari, Afghanistan's new chief justice, has banned cable television - Brickbats - Brief Article
publisher=Reason magazine
author=
date=May 2003
accessdate=2008-08-04
quote="I want education for women," he said, "but we want men and women not to sit together." [http://www.webcitation.org/query?url=http%3A%2F%2Ffindarticles.com%2Fp%2Farticles%2Fmi_m1568%2Fis_1_35%2Fai_99933023%3Ftag%3DartBody%3Bcol1&date=2008-08-04 mirror] ] cite news
url=http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/eav120704.shtml
title=Despite Karzai election, Afghan conservatives soldier on
publisher=Eurasianet
author=Claudio Franco
date=2004-12-07
accessdate=2008-08-04
quote=A ban on cable TV, reinstated on November 12, illustrates the stakes involved. The original ban, first imposed by the Supreme Court in January 2003, was revoked in April 2003 after a government commission investigated claims of obscenity filed in Kabul and the eastern city of Jalalabad, the hometown of Chief Justice Fazl Hadi Shinwari. Although execution of the ban was eventually eased, restrictions on most western and Indian television shows remain firmly in place. [http://www.webcitation.org/query?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.eurasianet.org%2Fdepartments%2Finsight%2Farticles%2Feav120704.shtml&date=2008-08-04 mirror] ]

See also

*List of universities in Afghanistan
*List of schools in Afghanistan
*Help Afghan School Children Organization

References

External links

* [http://www.moe.gov.af/ Islamic Republic of Afghanistan - Ministry of Education]
* [http://www.iranica.com/newsite/index.isc?Article=http://www.iranica.com/newsite/articles/unicode/v8f2/v8f207xxvii.html Encyclopedia Iranica: Education in Afghanistan]