UNICEF helping two million children back to school

The UN agency for children, UNICEF, has launched an ambitious plan to get two million Afghan children back to school by March, the vast majority of them girls. It's a daunting challenege, but one that would firmly reverse the ban placed by the ousted hardline Taliban on educating girls and women.

"We are now geared up to getting two million children back to school by the Afghan new year, which will be 21 March," UNICEF acting representative for Afghanistan, Sikander Khan, told IRIN in the Afghan capital, Kabul. UNICEF is working in cooperation with the interim Afghan authority to realise the target, which Khan said had the firm support of the international community and the Afghan leadership.

A generation of Afghans were unable to attend schools due to bloody factional fighting, lack of education facilities and a ban on female education by the Taliban. The extremist group captured Kabul in 1996 and imposed their own strict interpretation of Islamic law.

The back to school programme, which will provide pencils, textbooks, re-train teachers and renovate facilities, is estimated to cost US $25 million. The programme is considered to be one of the biggest project undertaken by the UNICEF in such difficult circumstances. "I am not aware that anyone has taken up such a massive, massive, campaign in a situation like this, and in such short period of time," Khan said.