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A Food Pyramid in the Hot Desert Biome      Here we see a food pyramid that shows how the Kilocalories pass up the food chain.      The first trophic level is occupied by the primary producers, which are the plants.  Plants make food through photosynthesis. The limiting factor for these plants is the shortage of water, so they produce fewer than 200 Kilocalories of food for the animals for each square meter each year.     The primary consumers, who eat the plants, occupy the second trophic level. These animals have very little to eat, and are small. Many are insects, or reptiles, who are cold blooded and who use less energy to maintain their bodies than mammals and birds do. As food for predators, they provide about 20 Kilocalories per square meter per year for predators.      The predators are the secondary consumers. They occupy the third trophic level. Again we see cold-blooded animals, such as snakes, insect-eating lizards, and tarantualas. Only about 2 Kilocalories per square meter per year are stored in their bodies. In the harsher desert environments, they are the top predators.     In areas where deserts get more rain, more plant material is produced and a few tertiary consumers may be able to survive. They form a fourth trophic level.      This diagram shows the energy available at each trophic level in the hot desert biome. These numbers tell about the numbers of Kilocalories per square meter per year.  Cold Desert Energy Pyramid  Introduction to Desert Biomes  Return to Introduction to Biomes © Elizabeth Anne Viau, 1999. This material may be used freely for instructional purposes but not sold for a price beyond the cost of reproduction. Please inform the author if you use it at eviau@earthlink.net

Education in the Afghanistan was significantly improved under the rule of King Zahir Shah (from 1933 to 1973),[1] making primary schools available to about half the population who were younger than 12 years of age, and expanding the secondary school system and the national university at Kabul.

n 1996 the Taliban regime banned education for females, and the madrassa (mosque school) became the main source of primary and secondary education.[1] After the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001, the interim government received substantial international aid to restore the education system.[1] In 2003 some 7,000 schools were operating in 20 of the 34 provinces, with 27,000 teachers teaching 4.2 million children (including 1.2 million girls).[1] Of that number, about 3.9 million were in primary schools.[1] When Kabul University reopened in 2002, some 24,000 students, male and female, enrolled.[1] Five other universities were being rehabilitated in the early 2000s.[1] Since the end of the dogmatic Taliban era in 2001, public school curricula have included religious subjects, but detailed instruction is left to religious teachers.[1] In 2003 an estimated 57 percent of men and 86 percent of women were illiterate, and the lack of skilled and educated workers was a major economic disadvantage.[1]

Despite those improvements, large percent of the population remained illiterate.[1] Beginning with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, successive wars virtually destroyed the education system.[1] Most teachers fled the country during the wars.[1] By the middle of the 1990s, only about 650 schools were functioning.[1]