In Afghanistan, a new approach to teaching history: Leave out the wars - The Washington... - 0 views
-
KABUL - In a country where the recent past has unfolded like a war epic, officials think they have found a way to teach Afghan history without widening the fractures between long-quarreling ethnic and political groups: leave out the past four decades.
A series of government-issued textbooks funded by the United States and several foreign aid organizations do just that, pausing history in 1973. There is no mention of the Soviet war, the mujaheddin, the Taliban or the U.S. military presence. In their efforts to promote a single national identity, Afghan leaders have deemed their own history too controversial.
The Battle for the Schools: The Taliban and State Education - 0 views
Afghan schools open, but under the Taliban's rules - The National - 0 views
-
Afghanistan's state-run schools are experiencing a renaissance, with some reopening for the first time in nearly a decade. Acid attacks on girls, murdered teachers, bombings of classrooms - these are on the decline.
But the reason for these openings is not because Nato and Afghan forces are winning the war for security. Rather, it's because the Afghan government, unable to bring security where needed, has begun to rely on secret agreements that give the Taliban greater say in the country's education.
Gains in girls' education in Afghanistan are at risk: Real lives - 1 views
-
As of September 2011, there were 2.7 million Afghan girls enrolled in school, compared to just 5,000 in 2001. There are two main challenges here. One is the lack of security in this country. There aren't many places which are peaceful where girls can go to school easily. Secondly, we don't have enough schools, books, chairs, tables or professional teachers. These are the things that close the path to school for many girls in Afghanistan. The biggest problem here that it is a mixed school. There are four thousand female students and not enough room for them. In the morning, both boys and girls come while in the afternoon it's just girls. But it is difficult because many people are not open-minded and do not like the girls and boys being educated together. We need a separate school for the girls but right now we have no choice.
Ghazi High School Reopens with a New Look | ReliefWeb - 0 views
-
The Ghazi High School was established as a “Lycée” in 1926 and from the beginning, had instruction in English. After it was almost completely destroyed by decades of war, USAID began working with the Ministry of Education to rebuild the school.
-
Construction for the 8,200 square meter three-story school began in 2007 and includes buildings with 72 classrooms, an enclosed link way that connects the classroom blocks, and ramps for wheelchair access. The school was designed and constructed to international seismic safety standards to prevent damage from earthquakes.
-
USAID created the Kabul Schools Program to support the Ministry of Education’s ambitious plans to expand quality and access to education, and when the program finishes in 2012, the Ministry will have the capacity to serve the educational needs of more than 12,000 boys and girls in greater Kabul City.
-
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN | OCTOBER 23, 2011 - The newly constructed Ghazi High School was inaugurated today by both Afghan and U.S. government officials, including H.E. Minister of Education Ghulam Farooq Wardak and U.S. Deputy Ambassador James B. Cunningham. Funded through USAID's Kabul Schools Program, 5,400 students will be able to study in the rebuilt school.
On World Teachers Day, three educators share their unique perspectives | Back... - 0 views
-
NEW YORK, USA, 4 October 2011 – As school enrolment continues to climb throughout most of the developing world, the roles teachers play in our lives have become even more crucial. Tasked with providing a quality education to our current generation of students, teachers also have a significant hand in shaping the future by instilling in children essential cultural and social values such as tolerance, gender equality and open dialogue. Despite the heavy responsibility placed on their shoulders, in many parts of world they are rewarded poorly and in some countries even subject to deadly attacks.
-
This Wednesday will mark the annual celebration of World Teachers’ Day, and to commemorate the event, UNICEF’s podcast moderator Femi Oke spoke with Jamila Marofi, a high school teacher from Afghanistan, Gorma Minnie, a school administrator from Liberia and Professor Fernando Reimers from the Harvard Graduate School of Education in America.
-
Professor Reimers went on to highlight the need to provide educators with the proper training before and during the school year as well as creating an environment conducive to effective teaching.
IRIN Asia | AFGHANISTAN: Patchy progress on education | Afghanistan | Children | Econom... - 0 views
-
KABUL, 12 September 2011 (IRIN) - Despite billions of dollars in aid and government funding over the past decade, Afghanistan still has about four million school-age children out of school, officials say.
"Overall our biggest challenge is our operating budget, which is not enough to cover the salaries of our teachers... and of the roughly 14,000 primary and secondary schools in the country, some 7,000 lack buildings, forcing children to study in the open, under trees or in tents," Education Ministry spokesman Aman Iman said. -
"My class is very close to the main road - in a tent. Sometimes even stray dogs get in," Khan told IRIN. "Passing cars blow dust into our tent, which gets into our clothes, hair and even notebooks. I really do not want to go to school, but what can I do? My family is forcing me to go."
-
Currently, only eight million of the 12 million school-age children are in school, according to the Education Ministry.
- ...1 more annotation...
UNICEF - Afghanistan - In Kabul, the Government of Japan funds new classrooms to improv... - 0 views
-
KABUL, Afghanistan, 5 July 2011 – New classrooms, chairs and desks mean better education at Shirino High School, one of the schools renovated and refurbished with funds from the Government of Japan as part of its ‘1,000 Classrooms’ initiative.
-
There were lots of problems last year, our students were sitting outside in the sun and they didn’t have a classroom,” recalls Shirino High School Headmistress Qamar Hadi. “There were no chairs or tables for the students.”
-
With new classrooms, the number of children enrolled in school has increased and retention rates have improved
- ...5 more annotations...
Can Afghanistan hang on to its newly minted college grads? - CSMonitor.com - 0 views
-
But such focus on the university and its graduates shouldn’t be a surprise. After three decades of war, the country's most talented professionals have fled, leaving behind a nation where 72 percent of the people are now illiterate and the number of universities may not even reach 50.
-
“For a master's degree, yes, it’s tempting to go overseas. But for living, it’s not. Once you’ve got an education, it seems like this is where people need you most,” says Sulieman Hedayat, one of 32 students who graduated on Thursday.
-
AUAF opened its doors in 2006, and everyone from prominent Afghan businessmen to institutions like USAID have invested tens of millions of dollars in the hopes of minting a university that produces students who can help rebuild Afghanistan.
- ...1 more annotation...
High Stakes - Girls' Education in Afghanistan - 0 views
-
High Stakes, a report by Oxfam and 15 other aid organizations, finds that gains in girls’ education are slipping away as a result of poverty, growing insecurity, a lack of trained teachers, neglect of post-primary education, and poorly equipped schools. The findings are based on a survey of more than 1,600 girls, parents, and teachers in 17 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces.
"Like a bird let loose" - girls' education in Afghanistan | Women's Views on News - 1 views
Afghan girls' education backsliding as donors shift focus to withdrawal | Global develo... - 0 views
-
Education has long been held up as a shining example of reconstruction in Afghanistan. Donors have ploughed approximately $1.9bn into rebuilding the Afghan education system since 2001. The Back to School campaign, launched in 2002 as a joint Afghan government/UN Initiative, was labelled an "inspiration" and the flagship of reconstruction and development efforts in Afghanistan.
-
The achievements of the Back to School campaign were undeniably impressive. In just the past two years, 2,281 schools have been built across the country. Around 5,000 Afghan girls were enrolled in school in 2001. Now there are 2.4 million, a staggering 480-fold increase.
-
Now, according to the report, Afghanistan's education system is sliding backwards and becoming crippled by poverty, increasing insecurity and a lack of investment in infrastructure and trained staff.
- ...3 more annotations...
BBC News - Afghan Taliban 'end' opposition to educating girls - 0 views
-
The Taliban are ready to drop their ban on schooling girls in Afghanistan, the country's education minister has said.
-
He told the TES: "What I am hearing at the very upper policy level of the Taliban is that they are no more opposing education and also girls' education.
"I hope, Inshallah (God willing), soon there will be a peaceful negotiation, a meaningful negotiation with our own opposition and that will not compromise at all the basic human rights and basic principles which have been guiding us to provide quality and balanced education to our people," the minister added.
-
Across the country agreements have been struck at a local level between militants and village elders to allow girls and female teachers to return to schools, the BBC's Quentin Sommerville in Kabul reports
- ...4 more annotations...
AFGHANISTAN: Struggling to improve education - 0 views
-
KABUL, 29 August 2010 (IRIN) - Education in Faryab Province, northern Afghanistan, has never been as good as it is now thanks to the dozens of new schools built by Norway.
-
Faryab is a success story in a country where almost half of the 12,600 schools nationwide do not have a building (classes are held in the open or in tents), officials said.
-
Norway’s flag and other official symbols are not used on the schools which, according to some experts, have helped keep them immune from armed attacks. Schools, students and teachers have often been attacked and harassed by gunmen allegedly associated with Taliban insurgents.
- ...5 more annotations...
Unique education programmes brighten the future for Afghanistan's young women... - 0 views
-
While life for many women in the country remains difficult, today Herat’s Gowarshad High School – named for the powerful Timurid queen who founded the city – is full of confident young girls who are well aware of their rights.
-
“If a woman is educated, she can effectively participate in society and transfer her knowledge to her children,” said Fariba, the school’s volleyball captain. “A society must not be led by men only.”
-
the Bangladeshi non-governmental organization BRAC runs a community-based school where girls who have not been able to enter the formal education system can get a basic education. There girls are tutored for two years, at which point they are prepared to join the formal school system at the fourth-grade level.
- ...2 more annotations...
Education in Afghanistan: Changing Minds - 0 views
-
"Why are you going to school? Education is useless for a girl." Forty-five-year old Bibi Gul wasn't happy that her young daughter, Nisa, had chosen to attend school. It meant the 9-year-old was busy most of the time doing her homework.
-
Even when public schools are available, parents often don't want their daughters to walk long distances unaccompanied to reach them. By bringing schools close to home—and, in certain communities, creating classes specifically for girls—CRS ensured that thousands of girls would be able to learn.
-
Nisa was especially happy when a tin box of storybooks arrived. CRS provides the schools we support with "libraries in a box" so that students can take home books to read. "After this, every day I would bring a storybook and I would read it for my sisters and brothers," remembers Nisa. But her mother still wasn't happy about her studies.
- ...1 more annotation...
AFGHANISTAN: Avoid using schools in elections, say agencies - 0 views
-
KABUL, 17 June 2010 (IRIN) - Putting a polling station in a school would be run-of-the-mill in most countries, but in Afghanistan it can be an invitation to an attack by Taliban insurgents, opposed to the government and western-style democracy. Taliban rocket, grenade, gun and arson attacks on schools averaged about 50 a month last year. During the August 2009 elections, which the Taliban vowed to disrupt, the number hit 250 in that month alone, according to data compiled by aid agencies.
-
Since the fall of the Taliban in late 2001, student numbers have surged from less than one million in 2001 to about seven million in 2010. More than 30 percent of the students are female, according to the Ministry of Education (MoE).
-
According to research by Care International, in 2006-2008 about 1,153 attacks on educational facilities were reported. Some 230 people were killed in armed attacks on schools in 2006-2007, according to the MoE. Schools are an easy target for the Taliban, looking to demonstrate the government's impotence. "Girls' education is clearly targeted more than boys," stated Care's report of September 2009, which blamed the insurgents and other community members for the attacks.
Welcome - Millennia 2015- ©® Institut Destrée / The Destree Institute - 1 views
-
The stark reality is that when an Afghan widow and mother of eight is approached by a Taliban member offering her a sack of rice every month with a promise to put the boy through school in return, she is forced to choose between knowing her son's fate and feeding the rest of her children.



