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Support to Basic Education (Afghanistan)

With a population of approximately 25 million people, Afghanistan suffers from extreme poverty and severely damaged infrastructure. The life expectancy is very low at 46 years. Literacy rates are among the lowest in the world.

Afghanistan 's education system has been undermined by decades of war. Under the 10-year Soviet occupation of Afghanistan (1979-1989), schools were restructured to reflect a pro-communist ideology. In the 13 years that followed Soviet occupation, education was further undermined by war, politics and extreme religious fundamentalism under the Mujaheddin and Taliban control imposed on 90% of the country (1989-2001). During this regime, a number of schools were forced to promote strict religious teachings. Furthermore, 23 years of war resulted in an estimated 80% of school buildings of all levels to be damaged or destroyed. Due to these circumstances, a large number of qualified teachers have fled the country, taken jobs outside of education or have been killed. Since the collapse of the Taliban regime in 2001, the state of the Afghan education system is cause for great concern. The current system has very little capacity to support basic inputs such as school buildings, salaries for teachers, materials and textbooks.

Persian class at Rehmat Girls School in Sheghnan, Badakhshan

Access to education has never been widespread, even before the Taliban regime. When the Afghan conflict began in 1978, adult literacy for men was 37% and for women was 8%. In 2000, UNICEF reported adult literacy rates were 40% for men and 4% for women, resulting in extremely high gender disparities. Like many developing countries, Afghanistan suffers from an urban-rural divide. Rural areas have poor classroom attendance, few trained teachers and insufficient teaching facilities. In addition to gender and geographic obstacles, insecurity throughout the country also impedes the development of an education system.

Despite all these obstacles over the past year, the demand for education has been soaring. This increased demand for education will require rapid training of teachers and construction of schools. Expanding the education system to meet the needs of a diverse and under-served population is challenging and complex. If the state of the education system does not improve, it will pose a direct threat to Afghanistan's fragile peace process.

Overview of the Education Strategy

The Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) in Afghanistan is working in collaboration with the Aga Khan Foundation (AKF) towards the development of a long-term strategy to improve the quality of basic education and to substantially improve the gender equity in the present Afghan government's education system in three provinces in North and Central Afghanistan, including three districts in Badakhshan, two districts in Bamyan and two districts in Baghlan.

AKF's education strategy amounts to $9,000,000 over the next three years. This is a multi-donor initiative. The strategy focuses on three main areas:

1. To improve the quality of teaching through strengthening of key education training institutions, in-service teacher training and materials supply;
2. To improve local support structures for primary schools through strengthening of district level Departments of Education, as well as increased community involvement and the piloting of school-based resource centers;
3. To ensure a safe and healthy environment for students through the rehabilitation of destroyed schools.

In July 2002, AKF was awarded a matching grant of $150,000 from NetAid Foundation's World School House Fund over an eighteen-month period to help Afghan communities reconstruct their education system. As illustrated by the following achievements, AKF's education strategy is progressing on several fronts.

•  Providing quality education for 2,000 children throughout the project area. In conjunction with the government's primary education system, 2,000 children are currently in school in AKF's targeted seven districts. With the rehabilitation and construction of additional schools, it is estimated that another 2,000 children will be in school by 2004.

•  Training and upgrading the skills of 100 female teachers. This effort will include existing teachers from primary or secondary levels, as well as young women (recruited from urban and rural areas) that will be trained as basic education teachers. Special emphasis is laid on expanding the number of women teachers. Female teachers encourage higher enrollment levels for girls, as families are more likely to send their girls to schools when women teach classes. As reported by the World Bank in 2002, of the 21,000 qualified teachers in government and NGO-run primary schools, only 12 percent were female.

Approximately 300 teachers (also referred to as in-service teachers), of which 100 are women, currently are attending courses to upgrade their skills at the Teacher Training Center (TTC), an AKF initiative, in the city of Pul-i-Khumri, located in Baghlan province. A total of 700 in-service teachers will be trained by November 2004. In addition to the teachers upgrading their skills, another 226 students were recruited for training as new teachers (pre-service teachers). In March 2003, 14 Master Trainers were hired, including 2 female Master Trainers. They received 4 weeks of training. During this time, the Master Trainers learned new teaching techniques, monitoring and evaluation methods, as well as skills in data collection for an education baseline survey in the targeted areas.

The NetAid grant has been instrumental in setting the foundation for education initiatives. Moreover, the training and upgrading of skills of teachers is a long-term commitment undertaken by AKF and will continue well beyond the end of the NetAid grant.

• Mentoring 100 teachers and monitoring their performance throughout the first academic year. Although a structured mentoring program has not yet been established, the Master Trainers will guide the newly trained teachers throughout their first academic year. A formal mentoring program will be introduced once the Teacher Training College is functioning with the hostel at full capacity. This will be an ongoing initiative beyond the life of the NetAid grant.
• Restoring 10 urban, peri-urban or rural schools that are damaged or partially destroyed. In Afghanistan, 80% of school buildings have been damaged or destroyed. Currently, children in many rural parts of Afghanistan are being taught in makeshift UNICEF tents or in open fields. The lack of permanent school structures creates unavoidable limitations on the length of school day and year. Under the AKF strategy, 16 schools are in the process of being rehabilitated or constructed in the 3 provinces of Badakhshan, Baghlan and Bamyan. More specifically, in Baghlan province, construction is underway for three new schools: Baghlan Primary School, Dahni Ghori Primary School , and Talaqan Primary School. Two schools in this province are being rehabilitated: Kayan High School and Talaqan Primary School.
• Construction of a women's hostel at the Teacher Training College in Pul-i-Khumri encourages greater participation of female teachers in teacher training courses. Without a hostel at the training center, women from fairly inaccessible areas are unable to participate in the training. Many delays, such as a very cold winter and shortage of skilled labor due to competing interests in agriculture have hampered the construction of the new hostel for the Pul-i-Khumri Teacher Training College. This year's rains produced a successful farming season resulting in unskilled laborers dividing their time in urban and rural settings.

The groundwork for the hostel has now been completed, and it is scheduled to open in September 2003. Once completed, the hostel will be able to accommodate a total of 384 teachers in training, divided equally between males and females. A hostel and Teacher Training Center is also being constructed in the province of Badakhshan.

In addition, AKF has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Government of Baghlan to ensure that the Teacher Training Center and hostel remain functioning as originally intended and that the campus does not get converted into a primary school or government offices.