Editor in Chief: Moh. Reza Huwaida Thursday, March 28th, 2024

Women in Afghan Education System

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Women in Afghan Education System

The incidents violating women rights in Afghanistan have not been stopped though there have been comparative developments made in the last decade or so and billions of dollars spent. In fact the changes are prevalent only on the exterior while from within the Afghan society still lacks the modernity and development it needs in order to reach to a respectable position. The support and assistance of the international community has only been able to provide clean and beautiful attire not a praiseworthy soul to Afghan society and this attire is going to get dirty very soon.

The Afghan social structure has been vehemently dominated by religious extremism and tribal nepotism. Though these factors have affected almost everyone, women have been intensely influenced as they belong to the weaker strata of the society. Most of the self-designed religious doctrines and tribal norms are against the women and discriminate their basic rights. Unfortunately, these norms and doctrines have even gone to the extent of violence and have tortured women physically – mostly in the public.

They, in the name of dignity of women, have in fact degraded them. Every now and then there are some incidents that show the sick attitude of the society towards them. One of the same types of incidents has occurred in northern Takhar province wherein about 150 schoolgirls were poisoned, some of whom are going through a critical condition.

According to the reports, the drinking water for the school was contaminated in some way, which made the girls who drank water seriously ill. Jan Mohammad Nabi Zada, a spokesperson for the province, said, "We are 100 percent sure that the water they drank inside their glasses were poisoned. This is either the work of those who are against the girls' education or irresponsible armed individuals." Supporting the same view, Haffizullah Safi, head of Takhar's public health department said, "This is not a natural illness. It is an intentional act to poison schoolgirls."

In accordance to parochial tribal norms and extremist religious beliefs women are not meant to get education. Their duties are bound to be inside the boundaries of their houses, which they do not have the right to leave in any condition except after the permission of an authoritative male member. Though there have been some improvements made to counter the traditional beliefs regarding the female education, they are mostly limited to only a couple of large cities, while most of the small cities and villages do not have proper or any arrangement for the education of women.

Moreover, the efforts that are carried out in some way or the other are not without opposition - most of the times the opposition comes in the form of ruthless violence. There have been many incidents when the lunatic culprits have thrown acids on the faces of the girls who go to schools.

arents, who are interested to let their girls get education, have to think thousand times because for them the lives of their children are dearer than their education. The incident in Takhar, mentioned above, is also an attempt to teach the people not to promote the education of the girls. However, it should be mentioned here that this sort of incidents are really very cowardly and they depict that the culprits are not capable of attracting others towards their bogus ideas so they take the support of violence on weaker strata of society.

In fact it is not just the education of the girls that has been influenced much by the extremist and backward thinking in Afghan society; rather the whole education system has been going through difficulties. Continuous wars for decades have left Afghan society suffer in so many fields and areas and education is also one of them.

However, it is interesting to note that there have been endeavors every now and then to improve the education system in Afghanistan but they have not be consistent enough to lay a strong foundation of better education to all the children of Afghanistan.

Prior to Soviet invasion, the most notable contribution for the growth of education was made my King Zahir Shah (1933-73). He made primary school available to almost half of the children of the country who were under the age of 12. He also made certain contribution regarding the improvement of secondary education and Kabul University. The second phase of educational development started with the government of People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan, which designed many education policies in order to disseminate modern education among the people.

Education was emphasized for both male and female. It was the first occasion when female education was given considerable importance. One of the basic reasons of the rise of women participation in education sector was the support of the government by Soviet Union that believed in principles of socialism, not depriving any one of education on the basis of gender. The presence and role of Soviet Union in Afghanistan will always remain controversial because of its imperialistic nature but its influence can never be ignored on the development of education sector.

But the civil wars that followed the withdrawal of Soviet regime from Afghanistan proved to be havoc for the education sector. Because of absence of strong government at the center, the situation of peace and order was shattered into thousand pieces. Various educational institutions were affected by ugly manifestation of violent intentions.

With the rise of Taliban in 1996, the decline of education system which was already not in a satisfactory condition, started. Taliban banned the female education and promulgated the madressah system of education, which was based on a very obsolete and improper methodology.

The students were confined to a single approach towards education and that was the Clergy approach, which depended on an extremist interpretation of Islam and Islamic concepts. Investigation and research were banned strictly, and students called as Talibs were not allowed to question their teachers. Rather, they were asked to blindly follow what the Clergy approach had to offer them. The basic purpose of education was thus non-existent in the so called education systems of Taliban. They were more like training camps for generating cadre for terrorist groups.

Today the situation has improved; however, it has yet to go miles so as to reach the required destination. The important factor to note is that the drawbacks in the system are hurting the weaker strata of the society to a larger extent and unfortunately women belongs to one of the same. Therefore, there are such incidents of violation of their rights throughout the country. Government authorities should take strict notice of such incidents and must try to make sure that the system treats every stratum of society in accordance to the demands of justice.

Dilawar Sherzai is the permanent writer of the Daily outlook Afghanistan. He can be reached at dilawar.sherzai@gmail.com.

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