After gaining its independence in 1919, King Amanullah introduced a formal education reform in Afghanistan as part of his overall modernization program that focused on the literacy and numeracy of the children and adults. He emphasized on education campaigns so much so that he himself went on conducting classes. The curriculum was designed in a way that illiterate adults could read and write in 40 days. In 1928, approximately 2000 female students were attending formal schools and others were provided scholarships to go abroad for further studies.

After a revolution in 1929, the notion of nationwide education was eliminated and the schools’doors were shut at female students. This situation prevailed until 1950s when Afghanistan witnessed some progress towards its formal education. The constitution of Afghanistan in1964 made education compulsory. Despite education being a constitutional right it was it was not made accessible to all except the elites in the major cities. In 1969, only about 600,000 (10-20%) of the population was attending school.

Change in the 1978 government instituted the nationwide education with communist ideology. This era pointed a significant improvement in taking the notion of nationwide education out of the capital to the remote provinces and in 1986 Afghanistan was awarded a medal by UNESCO for its success in raising levels of literacy among the general population. In 1989 around 2 million Afghans became literate.

During the years of civil war (1990-2001) the foundation of educational structure were destroyed and the situation went from bad to worse during the Taliban regime (1996-2001) where female population were completely banned from schools.

The fall of the Taliban regime in 2001 left Afghanistan with more than 80% of its population illiterate and a third of the country’s 8,000 schools destroyed. The extraordinary return to school in 2002 – a 400% increase in enrolment – exceeded all national and international expectations and gave the war-torn country a sense of hope and stability. United Nations report states a “remarkable increase” in the number of the primary school students. For instance, the number of girls enrolled in schools in 2010 was 79%, compared to 4% in 1999 during Taliban regime. The credit goes to community involvement and the role of community schools, which has shortened travel distances and provided increased security for girls to commute to school.

Despite all these achievements, the very critical question of quality still remains. The quality of education provided to these children and the quality of teachers teaching them are yet to be focused. A study conducted in the northern part of the country in 2005 has revealed a far greater problem – lack of teachers’ content knowledge. The study assessed 200 primary school teachers on the basis of the same exams as their students and only 10 (5%) teachers passed. This indicates towards the state of teachers’ content knowledge that requires much more deliberation from any educational reform. Teachers are the linchpin of quality on the basis of which quality of any school or any educational institution can be established.

Like any other developing country, absence of quality in education in Afghanistan is a bitter reality. It remains a prominent obstacle on the path of progress towards educating the children. Afghanistan has no alternative rather to progress through education, to that end, it needs to equally focus and invest on quality as it does on quantity of education. Otherwise, without noticing any holistic development in children communities may not remain so generous towards sending their children to schools and helping in establishment of the community schools. This is the time for the ministry of education to shift its focus from renewing the curriculum time and again to preparing the teachers as pedagogues. It is also time to equip teachers with the necessary knowledge, skills and attitude so that they light the existent sparks within their students by educating their minds and hearts. In this way teachers may be able to transform the children by developing them as change agents who can take the responsibility of making their environment a better place to live.