The United States Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) say the achievements made in Afghanistan’s education sector may be inflated, and that large amounts of American aid money for the country’s reconstruction may have been spent wastefully. According to media reports, SIGAR has demanded explanations from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) over statements made by educational ministers of the Afghan National Unity Government (NUG) regarding Afghanistan’s ghost schools and salary payments in the past. Recently at a parliamentary hearing, Asadullah Hanif Balkhi and Farida Momand, respectively ministers of Education and Higher Education, said that their predecessors under former president Hamid Karzai had inflated the number of teachers and schools, embezzled school funds, and influenced university entry exams.

Afghan and US officials have always boasted about rapid improvements of Afghanistan’s education sector, with school enrollment rising from less than one million in 2002 to more than 8 million boys and girls in 2013. According to Afghan officials, enrollments of female students in schools have also seen remarkable progresses across the country. However, now the SIGAR says the data have been compiled by Afghan Education Ministry, and that the figures may have been fabricated given the recent statements of NUG ministers. A month earlier, the US inspector general for Afghanistan’s reconstruction had said that up to 1.55 million absent students were counted as part of overall number of students in the country last year.

Afghanistan’s education has been one of the major sectors funded by international aid in past over a decade, attracting most of the international aid donations after the security sector. The rapid progresses in this area has always provided the government the opportunity to boast about their and the government’s performances. However, it has also been facing enormous challenges ranging from security to corruption, low educational quality, lack of skilled personnel and teachers and flawed educational system. The recent allegations of massive forgery of statistics of number of students, teachers and schools are throwing the government accounts of achievements into serious doubts. The claims, if proved to be true, suggest how Afghanistan’s key sectors such as education are deeply involved in top-level corruption and embezzlement. International corruption monitoring agencies have labeled Afghanistan’s education sector as one of the highly corrupt government areas in Afghanistan.

Perhaps the most daunting challenge for Afghanistan’s education sector has been the ongoing insecurity and insurgency affecting schools operations in insecure parts of the country. The Taliban continue to force hundreds of schools shut every year as the group imposes their restrictive policies against schools and education personnel. It has been the trend for the past decade. The government has been struggling to keep the schools open by launching military operations as well as mediations from local elders and even making compromises with the Taliban. The widespread insecurity for schools in insecure provinces have been affecting not only schools normal operations but also other school-related matters such as salary payments that allegedly at some points funded the Taliban. However, now the NUG officials say former officials used to count closed schools as active and salaries and other benefits are paid for ‘ghost teachers and schools’.

Still, the education sector has been facing numerous challenges affecting overall performance of Afghan schools while the impacts may not have been recorded and dealt with efficiently. In most of the provinces, the schools have flawed recording of students and teachers’ attendance and registration. There are absent students and teachers counted as present or registered while they may not have been attending school for years. The reports that are used to compile overall educational statistics of the Ministry of Education originate from schools. However, the schools, either in relatively secure or insecure provinces, provide forged data on their number of students, teachers as well as facilities and school offices/classes. Even individuals with no sufficient qualifications work as replacement teachers in positions that are filled by absent but qualified teachers.

Schools not meeting minimum requirements in terms of required number of students for each class and other requirements easily forge reports and compromise with Ministry of Education delegations. The fabricated reports and other statistical data are usually approved by local senior management of the Ministry including district and provincial education departments and up to the chain in the Ministry of Education in exchange for bribes or due to inadequate monitoring on the schools. This result to compilation of largely faked data for the Ministry of Education which is later used for developing policies and plans and reporting to the other government stakeholders and the international donors. However, the weak monitoring and reporting systems in schools management is not all the things behind the possible inflated statistics. The alleged large-scale corruption and embezzlement could be the key factor behind massive manipulation of statistical figures on number of students, schools and teachers.  Previously the Ministry of Education was using classic system of direct salary payment to transfer wages to its personnel across the country. This was a highly insecure system which used to help corruption and embezzlement and endanger teachers travelling for collecting their salaries. Based on the old salary payment system, thousands of so-called ghost-teachers and administrators mostly in insecure provinces were paid by the government while the money went to pockets of corrupt officials or education administrators. Later, a more advanced system of salary payment system is applied which considerably prevents corruption and embezzlement. However, it still has its flaws which should be improved over time.

The recent claims by the NUG officials have raised serious doubts regarding the much-applauded achievements in Afghanistan’s education sector. The allegations are putting the relevant ministries and the government of Afghanistan in a difficult position against the international donors funding the second fund-hungry sector in Afghanistan. It should be realized that the whole inflated figures on educational achievements should be attributed to the weak systems in the education bureaucracy of Afghanistan and the large-scale corruption and embezzlement in the Ministry of Education. Exposing the flaws and corruptions in the government is a promising move from the NUG ministers in their attempt to promote good governance and fight corruption. However, the NUG needs to act decisively to tackle the top-level corruption in the government.