Editor in Chief: Moh. Reza Huwaida Friday, March 29th, 2024

The Educational Challenges in Afghanistan

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The Educational Challenges in Afghanistan

With the beginning of New Year in Afghanistan, Afghan boys and girls rush towards schools that are still threatened by extremist forces and lack the required standards. Warning school students have turned to be a tactical instrument for the extremist Taliban to spread their influence across the less-secure provinces. There have been occurrences across the country in which the extremist elements sprayed acid on students’ faces, burnt school buildings, threatened parents, distributed pamphlets calling for closure of girls’ schools and killed innocent children seeking education.

For almost a decade, the Ministry of Education has been making promising announcements indicating the increasing number of school enrollment and the short term programs launched to address the very basic needs of students. With the highest rate of illiteracy following the Taliban ouster in late 2001, the international community backed president Karzai to strongly combat illiteracy and promote education. Schools were built, teachers were recruited and new textbooks were developed to improve schooling in the war-wrecked Afghanistan. However, much remains to be done to overcome the challenge to educate Afghan boys and girls.

The Afghan government administration has failed to reopen schools that are closed in restive southern provinces where local Taliban members let no girls or boys attend schools or insecurity prevent schools from functioning. A decade later, president Karzai is still humbly requesting Taliban to let schools remain operational. Certain level of compromises is made between the government and Taliban militants over schools in restive provinces, mediated by local elders and moderate religious scholars.

In a ceremony marking start of the country’s school year, President Hamid Karzai called on tribal and religious leaders to encourage the education of girls. He also urged insurgent groups not to attack teachers and school children, saying that the country could only develop through the spread of education. “Most importantly, I call on the religious scholars and tribal elders who are present today in the ceremony to encourage the education of girls, Karzai said. “To encourage children towards education particularly the education of girls is vital and important.” He added.

Since the beginning of the post-Taliban era in Afghanistan, security has always topped the news and analyses. It has received the highest attention and bulk of aids. The government of president Karzai has turned to a security cabinet; however, it has deteriorated even more.

This has overshadowed the entire government agenda for rebuilding the war-ravaged Afghanistan. Hence, education has attracted insufficient attention and budget. No need to say, a country’s development or degradation depends mainly on how it approaches education and training needs and to what extent the country pays importance to proficient educational cadres and skilled human resources. The current developmental gap between the first, second and third world countries is not only disastrous for underdeveloped countries such as Afghanistan but also for the developed nations.

Accordingly, the world is putting budget and human resources to promote education in Afghanistan. High quality pre-primary, primary, secondary, higher and vocational education and training remain the most substantial element to develop Afghanistan and lay ground for local capacities.

Initial learning is not enough. People's skills must be constantly renewed to enable them to meet the challenges of ever-evolving technologies, increasing internationalization and demographic changes. Nowadays, lifelong learning is the key to jobs and growth, as well as to allow everyone the chance to participate fully in society. The post-conflict Afghanistan is severely suffering from several challenges including problems in education sector. The new era in Afghanistan has seen positive changes but more challenges remain unaddressed.

In addition to economic, military and social developments in Afghanistan since the beginning of the new era, there have been improvements in education sector across the country. However, more needs to be done to address the remaining challenges on the way to build an updated, efficient and well-organized education system. After the soviet invasion and the devastative civil war in the country, girls were not allowed to have education at all levels under the Taliban regime and not enough facilities were available to educate boys.

Therefore, the new world-backed government and the international community said they were committed to fight poverty and illiteracy. Since then, they’ve made all-out efforts to rapidly improve the situation and help all boys and girls get enrolled at schools.

Bearing in mind the fact that the basis of human capacity developments, modern values promotion and a constant rule of law are dependent on accessibility to and the level of educational development in a country, the works done in Afghanistan for rebuilding the basis of primary and higher education since the Taliban’s ouster from power in late 2001 appear considerable. But it never indicates that no more is required from the government and the international community. Not all parts of the country have experienced the same level of progress.

There are villages across that are deprived of the least facilities to educate their children and bring a tiny change in their lives in terms of education and schooling. A strategic blunder committed by education policy makers was the currently rampant short term project-like view of this big national subject. It deserved to receive more attention, budget and planning than it receives today. Demographic criterion was replaced by geographic benchmarks. Thus, much of the populated areas were neglected in preparing allotments and developing plans.

Shortcomings and improvements made in the last decade have symbolized the hard, long journey of Afghans to build a better, prosperous society where people enjoy peace, development and welfare. That, experiments say, is unlikely to come true unless there are strong educational institutions and a healthy education system. Putting emphasis on Education role in promoting democratic and universal values, Afghan government and the international community need to lay the foundation of a developed, modern and stable educational system.

The government has promised that no children will be out of school in the end of the ANDS deadline, the year 2020. The challenges lying ahead on the way to achieve this goal is too difficult to address, but the international community’s unprecedented commitment and help to the development in Afghanistan is keeping the ray of hope opened. Continuance of the international community’s aids to carry on development projects in Afghanistan and a better performance by Afghan government can help overcome the existing challenges.

To meet the objectives, government and nongovernment stakeholders, as a prerequisite, require a scientific study of opportunities and challenges to promote education and fight illiteracy in Afghanistan. Social norms, fanatic religious views and physical limitations must be adjusted to create an education-friendly environment.

At the second step, long term and strategic plans should be developed based on ground realities and a farsighted view of the future. Continuing shortsightedness in education management will ruin opportunities and will hold back the trend. Enough budget and physical resources shall be provided to speedily address educational needs and necessities. And meritocracy should rule over policy making, budgeting and programming for education in Afghanistan because a big part of the problem is rooted in corrupt administration and inefficient management.

Nasruddin Memati is the permanent writer of the Daily Outlook Afghanistan. He can be reached at outlookafghanistan@gmail.com

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