shortly after September 11, 2001, the Taliban’s Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan collapsed under the heavy attacks of American B52s, and the NATO-led International Security Assistance Forces (ISAF) invaded the country to establish a so-called democratic government. Since then Afghanistan has experienced many changes, especially in its education system, yet it has a long way to go to standardize its curriculum to global standards, to professionally implement it in schools and universities, and to see a change. 

The education system, completely undermined by protracted conflict over three decades, has improved significantly in the last 14 years but only quantitatively. While during the Taliban regime (1996-2001) fewer than one million children (none girls) attended schools, this number has been soaring since 2001--today, almost ten million students (almost 38 percent of which girls (UNICEF 2011)) attend schools and universities around the country.

With the presence of international community, public schools, most of which closed during Taliban, were reopened around the country with a new curriculum, replacing the Taliban curricula that had been confined to Sharia and the necessity for Jihad. Under Karzai’s administration, fuelled by the high demand for limited public school places, private schools started their activities, going through explosive growth in numbers and gaining more students than public schools in offering a relatively quality education. Marefat School is one of these private schools.

First established in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, in 1994, Marefat High School started its activities with 500 USD, 38 Students and five teachers in Pol-e Khushk, one of the poorest, most deprived, and most war-torn areas in West of Kabul, in 2002. Since then, Marefat has had significant achievements. Now Marefat has approximately 3,600 students, 130 teachers, a two-storey traditional adobe building and a four-storey modern complex, and one million USD annual budget.

On a cloudy Saturday, I sat with a seven grader at Marefat who has recently written a story, a fabulous one ever written by a seven grader. Khalil Ghulami, 14, a reticent, deep, studious and reserved seven grader at Marefat High School, Kabul, has recently written a 49-page storybook, titled The Wonderful World, and has printed just one copy of it with 1300 Afs (22 USD) paid by her mother, Zakia, 35, who runs a beauty parlour to help her husband, a shopkeeper, to make a living for their family of seven members, five of whom attending schools.

Khalil’s The Wonderful World, is an imaginative account of the adventures of two characters who jeopardize their lives to establish peace and equality in this imaginary world by killing the many cruel and tyrant ruling characters. In the story, Khalil symbolically depicts the quest and dream of a post-war generation for peace, keenly and thoughtfully.

Khalil is supported by his parents who want him to realize his dreams and to work on what he loves. That very support has helped him improve. “My parents, especially my mother, has always instructed, supported and encouraged me”, says Khalil with a smile on his face. With that support and encouragement, Khalil has come a long way since his childhood when he “didn’t know, or knew too less about the world and about what way [he] would take.” “The first piece I wrote was a short story—I decided not to give it to anyone. Then I wrote two other ones, The Crafty Fox and the Wise Wolf and The Four Princes and the Dragon. I wrote The Wonderful World, the fourth one, last winter.”

Beside his school lessons and reading, Khalil is interested in learning English. He has been attending English classes since last winter at in a private Institute of English Language. Dreaming to become a well-known storywriter and novelist in the future, Khalil tries to learn English professionally so he can read fictions and novels in English to open a window to a completely new world and to pursue his higher education abroad.

At Marefat, a private school whose students enjoy a better environment of learning, teachers with better credentials and a relatively quality curriculum, however, Khalil’s work has not been paid heed at, or encouraged at least as an extraordinary work of a seven grader should be. When Khalil started attending Marefat in the fifth grade, he found that is was better than his previous public school. The teachers were encouraging and his classmates well-disciplined. When Khalil decided to write The Wonderful World, he was sure his teachers and fellow students would be impressed However, to his disappointment, more than a month after he circulated it, “only a few classmates who are close friends, and only two-three teachers have read the book”. His Dari Literature teacher reviewed it for revision at Khalil’s request. Marefat is one of the very few schools that encourage and support their pupils. But writing, a core skill in today’s education, is not included in the school curriculum at all and only occasionally, for fun or for special events like International Teachers’ or Mothers’ Day, teachers assign students to write some pieces—but never academic, and they are never checked or revised.

Khalil represents a generation desperate to access quality education. In spite of hundreds of millions of dollars donated by international community and international organizations to improve access to quality education, it remains wholly inadequate. Prospects for the future do not, unfortunately, seem promising because there is neither the budget for the necessary investment in the education system, nor apparently the will to undertake the massive necessary reforms.

Tomorrow Khalil’s generation will be faced with tougher challenges but the present system fails to provide them with necessary skills and knowledge. Khalil and his generation are walking on the uneven uphill path to future, not provided with quality education, the dire need for such a challenging future awaiting them.