UNICEF backs minister's call for more education funding

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), one of the lead agencies assisting Afghanistan's government in re-establishing its education sector, is supporting Afghan Education Minister Mohammad Yunos Qanuni's recent urgent call for increased funding. "UNICEF supports the minister of education in urging for greater international assistance to the education sector," an agency spokesman, Chulho Hyun, told IRIN from the Afghan capital, Kabul on Friday. "Over the past year, since the beginning of the education programme, we have seen that there is a thirst and a demand for education and, given the promises and the commitments made already, we in the international community have the responsibility to follow through," he said. At a press conference in Kabul on Wednesday, Qanuni urged the international community to contribute more to the education sector. "The challenge that the ministry of education is facing is that if we are not successful in receiving the proposed budget next year or this current year, we will have a big problem in the education sector," AFP quoted him as saying. He went on to say that of a proposed budget of US $200 million for this year, the ministry had so far received only $86 million in assistance. Observers believe that with four million children back in schools, the nascent education system cannot absorb more pupils unless its damaged infrastructure is repaired and the quality of learning improved. "If we are not successful in getting our proposed budget this year, we will be forced to stand at the school gates and tell the children not to come to school," Qanuni warned. Hyun said the issue went far beyond that of the return of pupils to schools. "Students are moving up each year, and each year they will need additional means, so we are looking at a critical mass of students for whom the assistance must be there in the years to come," he said, adding that UNICEF was seeking mid- to longer-term means of supporting the education system, which needed sustained donor assistance. The country's higher-education sector is also in the doldrums with university campuses lacking books, equipment and qualified academics. Afghan Higher Education Minister Sharif Fayaz has appealed for increased international assistance, especially in the areas of information technology for distance-education programmes. In supporting the Afghan government, UNICEF has distributed learning materials to over four million children, as well as having trained 70,000 teachers to date. It also has another 18,000 teachers under training. So far this year, it has provided about 176 schools across the country with safe drinking water and sanitation.