New school year opens on optimistic note

Sunday was a day of reflection and optimism as Afghans celebrated the start of a new academic year, the third since the downfall of the hardline Taliban regime in December 2001. An estimated 5.5 million students are expected to return to the classroom this year. Nafisa, a 30-year-old housewife, is one of them. Set to return after nearly 20 years absence, the Afghan returnee from Pakistan, dressed in her traditional long black dress and white scarf, is optimistic. "Now that there is hope for a brighter future and less possibility of further conflicts, this is the right time and not too late to go back to school," the mother-of-four who returned from exile in the neighboring Pakistani border city of Quetta last year, told IRIN. Nafisa, who was in grade three of primary school when her family left the country for Pakistan, said she was still determined to achieve her pre-conflict dream to become a schoolteacher. "I am capable of attending grade seven and it is just a matter of another five years to see my dreams come true," said the newly enrolled student. Her husband, a schoolteacher in Kabul, supports her decision. More than two years after the fall of the Taliban, enrolment levels in the country’s schools are higher than ever before. "Afghanistan is witnessing remarkable improvements in education since the fall of the Taliban regime," Afghan Education Minister Younus Qanooni told students and teachers assembled to mark the official opening of the school year in Kabul. During Taliban times girls and women were banned from attending school. Qanooni said the country expected 1.5 million new enrolments to add to the 4.2 million students who returned to school last year. "The number of girls attending school leaped to 36 percent in 2003 and it is expected to further increase this year." But despite the progress, huge challenges remain. According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), there are still 1.5 million girls of primary school age who are still not benefiting from education. "Key barriers to girls’ education in Afghanistan include distance from home to school room, lack of adequate facilities, poor water and sanitation in schools, and the perceived low quality of teaching," Edward Carwardine, a UNICEF spokesman, told IRIN. The country is in dire need of thousands of new schools and tens of thousands of trained teachers if it is to eradicate more than two decades of education deficit. Only 15 per cent of 100,000 registered teachers in Afghanistan hold professional qualifications. According to UNICEF, with approximately 75 percent of schools damaged in Afghanistan, more than 2,500 new schools need to be built in each of the next three years to accommodate the demand for education.

Hundreds of thousands of children across the country still lack access to proper classrooms and schools

The UN agency said it aimed to assist one million of these children back into the classroom by the end of 2004. "Key programmes to reach this target will include the development of community-based schools for 500,000 out-of-school girls, improved teacher training for 50,000 primary school teachers and accelerated learning programmes for girls who have missed several years of education," Carwardine noted. The rate of illiteracy nationwide is estimated at 70 percent, mostly affecting women. In response to this, Afghan officials have said that they are implementing a new 12-year education strategy in an attempt to cut this alarming rate – one of highest in the world - by 2015. "With the new strategy we expect to present 9.3 million [high school] graduates to society who should have a knowledge of computers, English and other up-to-date capabilities by then," Qanooni said. The minister noted that, based on the new strategy, 65 percent of eligible Afghans should be literate in the next 10 years, while expecting girls' participation in schools to leap up to 95 percent in 12 years time. "All this is possible if the international community continues to support Afghan education in the longer term."