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IV. The Indirect Impact of Insecurity on Education

When a family wants to send their daughters to school but they see the school is not close or it’s not a good building or there are not qualified teachers, many parents don’t send their children to school because they see some danger, some problem. It’s circular. . . . Three components are very important: 1. security, 2. teachers, 3. buildings. All are impacted by security.
—Mohammeed Azim Karbalai, Director of Planning Department, Ministry of Education, Kabul, December 15, 2005.

Regardless of the motivation for attacks on teachers, students, and schools in Afghanistan, their effect is devastating and far-reaching: parents are afraid to send their children to school, teachers are afraid to teach, and schools are shut down. Education providers—the Afghan government and NGOs—are forced to withdraw from insecure areas or are unable to expand to areas that desperately need them. In every respect, girls, who have much more limited access to education to begin with and who are typically the first to be pulled out of school because of insecurity, are disproportionately affected.

This climate of insecurity has seriously retarded, and in places even stopped, the crucial task of educating Afghan children. The problem is particularly acute outside of larger urban areas and off major roads, although early 2006 saw new attacks on previously secure schools in urban areas. In southern and southeastern Afghanistan, where a new rash of suicide bombings and targeting of teachers and schools has directly put schools in the line of fire, insecurity has cast an even more serious pall. Yet it is impossible to gauge the exact impact of insecurity on education because no one––including the government and the United Nations––has a comprehensive view of the number of schools and other educational settings operating in the south and southeast at any given moment (the failure to monitor attacks on education is discussed in the section on government and international responsibility below).

Even when schools continue operating, students may not attend after a threat or an attack. Each incident affects the risk assessment that parents and students undertake nearly every day. Single episodes, even from far away districts, accumulate to establish a pattern: in a country as traumatized by violence as Afghanistan, teachers, parents, and students are keenly attuned to fluctuations in this pattern and decide to continue—or stop—their education based on how they view the general climate of insecurity and how it will manifest itself in their immediate environment.290 Parents have an even lower threshold for insecurity when it comes to the school attendance of their daughters, as noted above.

One senior Western education expert explained: “The closure of a school is bound to have a ripple effect so that many other schools close around [one affected school] for no particular reason except that the school was burned. When it reopens, fewer girls come back, more boys.”291 This “ripple effect” magnifies the gravity of each attack and raises fears elsewhere. For example, after the office of the Afghan NGO Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance (CHA) in Panjwai was attacked in April 2004 and two staff members were killed, residents of a neighboring district subsequently decided not to go forward with an accelerated learning program aimed at women and girls.292

A staff member of a major international NGO with extensive experience in education provided a similar assessment, describing how threats against schools can create a climate of fear:

[The problem with nightletters] happened in Pol-e Khumri [near Kabul] last spring. And so many times in the southeastern provinces: Logar, Wardak, Ghazni. People cannot make decisions very easily. For a month or two months you cannot see any children in school because they may fear very bad news from people who distributed night letters or attack or bomb the school. For weeks you cannot expect to have children back in schools.293

Without an effective government or credible media that can track and speak definitively about the security environment, Afghan parents and students are forced to assess their risk based on rumors and incomplete information. “There is a sense of insecurity and fear; maybe it happened to someone’s daughter, it creates a sense of concern. Because of limited reporting, a very limited number of attacks are getting reported, but people fear the worst,” said Horia Mossadeq, of Human Rights Research and Advocacy Consortium, which has investigated the state of Afghanistan’s educational system for several years.294 For example, the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, which investigated rumors in Mazar-e Sharif about the kidnapping of students in 2004 and 2005 that decreased student attendance, found only one incident in that city.295 Local investigators with the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission believed that local individuals opposed to education magnified the incident in order to discourage school attendance.296

In another example, the mother of five girls attending school in Kandahar explained how she assesses the incomplete information about security circulating around her community. She keeps her daughters at home, she said, “at times when the security gets particularly bad. When people talk about it. There is no official announcement but the community talks about the situation getting worse so we stop them from going.”297

Insecurity not only impedes education when it keeps children and teachers home, shuts down schools, and prevents the government and NGOs from opening new schools; it also exacerbates other factors that keep children from enrolling in or staying in school in Afghanistan. These include:

  • insufficient development aid and services;
  •  schools that are too far away or simply unavailable, especially girls’ schools in rural areas and girls’ secondary schools;
  • school facilities that are physically inadequate or culturally inappropriate;
  • a shortage of qualified teachers, especially female teachers;
  • the poor quality of education offered;
  • poverty that requires children to work for income or in the home, or that places school supplies and transport out of reach;
  • negative attitudes about girls’ education or girls being seen outside the home; and,
  • early marriage of girls.298

Because decisions about whether to send children to school are complex, it is often impossible to point to a single reason children are kept out.299 The statements of a school official from Maywand district, Kandahar, illustrate this complexity: around three to four years before, he told us, girls in his district went to school for one year. But they stopped, he said, “because of the threat from the outside and because of the cultural norms of society—people teased those who sent their girls, and there were no separate schools or female teachers available.”300

What is clear, however, is that insecurity heightens the effect of existing barriers to education on girls and women, making it especially troublesome that there are far fewer girls’ schools than boys’ schools. “Anything in security terms is more serious for women,” said a staff member of an NGO providing home-based education. “Distance, permission to leave home, quality.”301

Insufficient Development Aid and Services

Even before the recent upswing in suicide bombings and attacks on education, the aid community in Afghanistan faced increasingly widespread and lethal violence in 2004 and 2005. Although worse in the south and east, attacks also spread to the north and west, where more NGOs operate.302 NGO staff are literally paying with their lives.

Everyone we spoke with who was involved with development in Afghanistan told us that insecurity—including ideological targeting of NGOs and general criminality—had hurt their work. These included staff of more than fifteen international and national NGOs, as well as the World Bank, USAID, a USAID contractor, U.N. staff, and government officials.

At minimum, the threat of violence has caused NGOs and government officials to take precautions such as changing their vehicles, removing NGO logos, using more secure but less direct routes, and not traveling before or after certain hours.303 NGOs also described difficulties recruiting people to go to insecure areas and having to open and close field offices depending on the security climate. For example, one Afghan NGO staff person told us that the organization closed its office in Logar the previous year when “a mine was laid in front of the door.” (In this case the office was able to reopen when “local people came and said, ‘please come back and we will guarantee security.’”)304

Interruptions in operations and other constraints slow the pace of work and can hurt the quality of services provided. For example, a staff member of an NGO in Kandahar told us:

Security has held us back. I used to go out a lot more, but more and more I feel that I can’t do that as much as I would like to. We always have to be careful when we do women’s activities—our words, statements, physical appearance—so that because of our activities women are not targeted. It hinders our progress—something that can take a month may take us four to five months because we have to be so careful. This makes us look bad to someone in Washington. This is not rocket science, so why is it taking so long? But it is the insurgency that hampers us from moving faster.305

Several NGOs and others told us they could not monitor projects in the way they would like.306 For example, some must bring project representatives into provincial centers instead of traveling to projects and seeing them for themselves.307 Another NGO staff member noted that insecurity in parts of Paktia and Nangahar “does prevent staff from making field visits. Last year in these provinces there were moments when we didn’t let staff in and couldn’t carry out training, monitor and supervise, distribute materials, and that slows our training.”308

International organizations have severely restrained their foreign staff from traveling and working in many areas of the south and southeast. An American USAID contractor noted: “Security very much impacts our movements and our staff here in Kabul. In the provinces we just don’t get out as much. Our monitoring and evaluation team are Afghans. I’d love to go with them, but when I go security and movement are compromised.”309 A World Bank official confirmed:

Security does affect my work. . . . I know my project would move faster if I could go there. I have projects in Helmand, Zabul, Kandahar. Kandahar, I go. Helmand, Zabul, no one is going, not even the deputy minister. . . . There are NGOs who work there but it’s very difficult to monitor. So security is huge there.310

Some NGOs and other agencies have been forced to close down operations because of insecurity. A senior U.N. official, who did not wish to be named, told Human Rights Watch in December: “Areas are becoming more insecure. There are areas where no agencies can operate; the government can’t operate; PRTs aren’t there. More and more areas are closed off to us.”311

“Security is a defining concern for us,” said a staff member of a prominent education provider. In several districts, she said, the organization has had to turn over its schools to the government and other organizations because it “couldn’t send in national staff to ensure quality of programming.”312 Another NGO worker described why the organization had ended its already limited work in Paktika: “The central government does not have enough power and control in Paktika, and because there are different anti-government groups there, nobody can work with open hands there because there are a lot of threats.”313 Oxfam, which was one of the few international humanitarian organizations working in rural Zabul and Kandahar, drastically scaled back its work to Kandahar city in late 2003 after some of their staff were threatened and beaten, and their vehicle hijacked.314 Similarly, employees of an NGO working primarily in the north and west told us that they phased out their program in Kandahar in mid-2005 “primarily due to insecurity and availability of resources . . . but if security permits we would definitely like to go back. But for education, we would think several times before doing it there. That area has strong Taliban influence. First, there is the physical presence of the Taliban. Second, even when they are not there, their influence is felt.”315

Moreover, many NGOs who have historically worked in other parts of Afghanistan have not expanded to the south or southeast. As one staff person noted simply: “Security impacts where we choose to work. If there is a high risk that staff will lose their lives, then it’s a [key consideration].”316 Staff of an Afghan NGO that has weathered serious security problems explained to Human Rights Watch why he had urged the coordinator of a joint NGO program not to expand the program to Helmand:

I said, “please don’t include Helmand province in your target areas because we will have to hire staff two times: we will send staff and they will be killed.”

This is not a joke. We cannot take charge of working there. This is the main place where the Taliban operates. It’s close to Pakistan and they can easily infiltrate during the night.317

The government of Afghanistan suffers from problems similar to those of NGOs. Increasing insecurity and targeting of educational staff has placed nearly unbearable burdens on the Afghan government’s already inefficient bureaucracy. Local Ministry of Education officials and district heads from different areas in southern and southeastern Afghanistan told Human Rights Watch that they were greatly limited in what they could do because of the threats directed at them and their educational staff.

For example, the head of the education department in Saydabad district of Wardak province, about an hour’s drive south of Kabul, told Human Rights Watch: “I cannot go out after dark. . . . I have a lot of responsibility for my schools and the district but [security] concerns make it so that I cannot travel freely outside.”318

An experienced teacher who works with the Ministry of Education’s Teacher Education Program in northwestern Afghanistan, described the problems faced there:

I set up my course in Murichag, [Badghis,] with eight women teachers, three months ago. They wrote night letters saying, “We will close your school.” So we closed the program. After a few days, we convinced people that this program is good, so we managed to succeed. On November 25, 2005, we tried to hold a meeting with teachers from Ghor, Herat, and Badghis. But there was fighting between two commanders in Ghor, so no one from Ghor could come and visit.319

Mohammed Azim Karbalai, Director of Planning for the Ministry of Education, explained that the insecurity has significantly impeded the Afghan government’s efforts to increase the educational rate throughout the country:

An important policy of the ministry is balanced education in all provinces and all districts so each year we have a plan. So each year we plan for the construction—each province has to have a certain number of schools constructed, but if we have some security problems, we don’t achieve these targets by the end of the year. We ask NGOs and companies that have to go to these areas—they don’t go if they have security problems. It is the main obstruction, problem for the reconstruction of schools. 320

Insecurity, and the attendant difficulty of government agencies, foreign reconstruction agencies, and NGO aid workers working in insecure areas, has also distorted national-level reconstruction policies in Afghanistan. Southern and southeastern Afghanistan, which have suffered most from insecurity, have witnessed a significant drop in reconstruction activity.

A senior Western education expert working in Afghanistan expressed his concern about this phenomenon: “We are very concerned about disparities that we’re creating. We’re not covering the whole country. There are some places in the country that have never seen a U.N. operation.”321

The failure to provide adequate aid to southern and southeastern Afghanistan has had significant political impact because it has fostered resentment against the perceived failures and biases of the central Afghan government and its international supporters. “Insecurity leads to driving NGOs away, which leads to low development, which leads to local resentment which leads to insecurity,” explained a U.N. observer.322 The then-provincial U.S. commander in Helmand told journalists in January 2006 that recent attacks on schools and the killing of a teacher had left many residents of the province, including influential tribal leaders, hedging their bets. “People are straddling the fence. They do not want to commit to the government yet.”323

Home-based school in Kandahar City. © 2005 Human Rights Watch/Zama Coursen-Neff.

Shortage of Schools and Infrastructure

An estimated 80 percent of existing schools in Afghanistan were either damaged or destroyed during the years of war.324 Despite the construction or refurbishment of more than 1,100schools since 2001, Afghanistan still has far fewer schools that it needs: more than half of rural communities had no primary school at all in 2003.325 As explained in the background section above, there are many more boys’ schools than girls schools, despite the greater impact of distance on girls; the shortage of girls’ schools is even more acute at the secondary level.

An analysis of the 2003 National Risk and Vulnerability Assessment (NRVA) found that many parents said they didn’t send their children to school because it was “too far away.” But parents are more likely to consider schools too far away if they perceive the route to be risky: the researchers concluded that the reason for not sending a child to school did not “always refer literally to distance. The actual distance a child walks to school may be short but if for example, the journey is unsafe or girls must walk through a busy bazaar then it is considered by respondents to be ‘too far away.’”326 As an education specialist for an Afghan NGO explained:

Security is a very big issue all over Afghanistan and sometimes it is an obstacle for education, but why are we thinking about security? To me it is not security but accessibility—it’s walking distance that stops girls from going to school. If a school is very nearby or in a house, then the issue is not security. There is no need to walk a long distance and be targeted by bad guys.327

The mother of two girls in Kandahar city who attended after-school classes told us she was considering pulling them out of the classes because they have to walk home. “Education is good but security is bad,” she explained. “It’s the walking I fear. . . Of course I am scared. There are bomb blasts constantly so of course I’m very worried. I pray all the time that they will be protected. May God protect them. . . I hope that God can take this fear from me. . . . When there is security, I will not prevent my daughters from doing anything.”328

Two eighteen-year-olds in the ninth grade in Parwan province told us that distance to school prevented many girls in their villages from attending. One said that she was the only girl from her village who made the thirty-minute walk to her school. “This school is a bit far and the way is not very secure. . . . I have many girl relatives my age. They don’t come to school because they don’t feel safe coming here.”329 The other woman explained:

The majority of girls in my age are illiterate—they don’t go to school. It is because the school is far, and their families don’t let them to come to school. I come with my other sisters, and if I was alone to come by myself, I would’ve never come because I don’t feel safe coming alone to school. We walk through the main road of village because walking on the fields is unsafe.330

Similarly, elders of Qala-e Wazir village in Bagrami district of Kabul province, only about ten kilometers south of the capital, explained to Human Rights Watch:

There are two schools in the area, Qala-e Wazir and Sheraki, and they are far. We don’t like to send our kids to these schools for security reasons: kidnappings and murders and because of the heat during the hot season—it’s too hard to walk. . . .

We are scared when our children go to school because of dangers, because the streets are not safe. There are no proper roads. The kids walk through the fields. When the wheat is high, we can’t see anything. It’s not safe.331

And a grandmother in Laghman said:

Yes, we send our boys to school, but not our girls. It is not safe for girls to go to school—the way is not good, they have to walk through fields that we don’t think is safe for them to cross. . . . Our younger girls ages six to nine were going to school, but their teacher got married and she went very far from here. Now my grandchildren [six- to nine-year-old girls] have not gone to school for months. For the older ones, as I told you, they don’t go.332

In Herat province, the director of a girls’ middle school explained: “Compared with the population of the area, the number of girls is low. The area where school is located is safe, but families who live far away don’t let their girls to come to school.”333

Hangama Anwari of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission confirmed: “All over Afghanistan security is the biggest issue, especially when it comes to girls. . . . If it takes more than ten minutes to reach a school, parents won’t send their girls to school. They send their boys though. Part of the problem is warlords and commanders.”334 Similarly, the Afghan Human Rights Commission found in research in 2005 that the most common reason interviewees gave for not sending girls to school was “distance too far; worried about security”—actually conflating these two factors; far fewer interviewees cited this reason for not sending boys.335

The problem is especially acute at the secondary level, where there are far fewer schools. The statements of elders in Bagrami district, Kabul, illustrate this problem. As one said:

If we had a high school in this part of the village, we would send our girls to this high school. We can assure you that. We are not against teenage girls being educated. We have some of them going to high school already. However, it is the tradition here not to allow grown up girls to go to school if they have to go far and to cross other villages. There is competition between villages and it is not good at all for these girls to risk being in contact with boys from other villages. Now we allow only girls from first to sixth grades to go to school. If we had a school on this side of the village, the older girls would attend. . . .

In this village, if grown up girls are not allowed to go to school, it is for reasons of honor and security. We are not against them been educated—to the contrary.336

A mother in Parwan province also explained to Human Rights Watch:

If there is a high school for girls in our village, yes, why not? I will send my daughter to school, but if she has to go to city [Charikar] or even to district [Sayed Kheyl] I think she will not be able to go. It is not safe for girls to go to cities. Nobody sends their daughters in such far places. My son, he is a man, he can go. For him it is not a big risk, but for a girl who is young also, it is dangerous to go to city.337

A staff member of an NGO that runs schools in the north, northeast, west, and southeast explained how, in the areas in which they operate, they try to overcome these barriers:

Security problems and distance from schools are especially problems for girls. Plus, age—girls who become older, parents prefer not to send [them], plus there is a preference for boys’ education in many families. Some families are quite sensitive to girls’ education—they don’t want girls to be sent. . . . So we find that distances have a much greater impact on girls.

So we decided to establish schools nearer their homes, community-based schools. This also decreases security problems, distance problems, encouraging girls to come to school.338

Where schools do exist, families may find them inadequate, unsafe, or culturally inappropriate.339 In many areas, school are held in tents, private homes, donated structures, mosques, and outside.340 For example, a teacher in Nesh district, Kandahar, where there are no girls’ schools, told Human Rights Watch: “Most of our schools are mobile, they have no set place, no tent. They are held under trees, in mosques, wherever we can. The teachers move the blackboards and equipment, and the students receive some supplies from the Ministry of Education and UNICEF.”341

In insecure areas, parents and children may also place greater importance on secure buildings and thus may be less likely to send children to tent or open air schools, or schools without a surrounding wall.342 Director Mohammed Azim Karbalai gave an illustrative example of the vicious circle formed by the failures of reconstruction due to insecurity in southern and southeastern Afghanistan:

In Afghanistan the main demand from families is a safe environment inside schools, so if they don’t have a building, then families don’t allow their children to go. Especially in Zabul and Uruzgan we have this problem. We haven’t reconstructed a lot of schools and families complained that they didn’t have suitable buildings for schools. But at this time we cannot do anything in this area.343

Human Rights Watch also interviewed a group of women and girls from a returnee camp in Paktia who said the camp elders were threatening them for leaving the camp to attend teacher training and their students for attending their schools in the camp: “Most schools are in tents, so our elders want a school in the camp. . . . In Gardez [the provincial capital], the security is better, so girls are encouraged to attend school.”344

In addition, there may be no separate school or shift for girls, the teachers may be male, or there may be no water, toilets, or wall around the school, all of which keep girls from attending school.345 Other infrastructure problems include a lack of school furniture, educational supplies, science and laboratory equipment for secondary schools, and heat during cold weather.346

Shortage of Teachers

Experienced and professionally qualified teachers, especially women, are in short supply. The lack of female teachers keeps girls, especially older girls, from attending school. “In some remote areas there are no women teachers, and parents won’t send their girls to school,” NGO education staff explained.347

The exact number of teachers and where they are is still not known. The Ministry of Education estimated that it had around 140,000 teachers in 2005-2006, but many others working with the ministry dispute this figure.348 According to the ministry, around 28 percent of teachers were female in 2004-2005, and most were in Kabul city, leaving an extreme shortfall in most areas.349 For example, the ministry reports that there were just seven female teachers in Uruzgan in 2004-2005, twenty-eight in Zabul, and 172 in Kandahar.350

The problem is particularly acute in rural areas where qualified women are unable or unwilling to travel to or live. “Women teachers won’t go to remote areas because the salary is low, there is no facility available for living,” said an NGO staff person.351 Security problems may also prevent women from teachers even when they already live in the community. For example, a teacher in Deh Yek district, Ghazni, described the situation in his village: “There is a girls’ school up to third grade, built in 2002-2003. But we have no women for teaching girls. . . . There are women teachers in our district, but they are afraid to teach because of the Taliban.” Their fears appeared well-founded—at least two male teachers houses had been bombed, he said, after they received night letters warning them against teaching girls.352

The government’s teacher training program and NGOs have focused on training local women. However, the lack of educated or even literate women in rural areas makes it difficult even to find women to train and can limit the quality of education provided.353 The government and NGOs also face problems sending women to rural areas to train female teachers there. A staff member of the government’s Teacher Education Programexplained:

Our original object was to include women teachers. . . . We don’t have special measures to make sure that the trainers are women, but our original goal for master trainers was fifty-fifty. But there are limits because the women core trainers can’t travel. There are some provinces women couldn’t go to. Some could have mahram [a close male relative to accompany her], but some couldn’t get anyone to go with her. So we had to limit assigning women to the provinces. They are doing work here in Kabul.

[The problems are]: security, transport, accommodation. Regarding security, in Wardak, in Ghazni, a woman traveling to visit schools is so unusual. You need to have a team so that women don’t look like a woman alone. We don’t have women traveling alone with a man because people are not used to it and women don’t feel comfortable. In Mazar and Herat, we sent women but they need transportation—they don’t feel comfortable sitting in a taxi and we can’t afford to hire a car. . . . So the only place they can work comfortably is Kabul.354

Other barriers to recruiting more women teachers include:

  • low salaries (1,800-2000 afghanis (U.S.$37-$41) a month), depending on the teacher’s qualifications, which result in experienced teachers seeking other, or second, jobs;355
  • the failure to develop efficient accreditation procedures and equivalence exams for women educated in Iran, Pakistan, and elsewhere that keeps many qualified teachers from teaching;356 and,
  • extremely low participation rates by older girls—the next generation of teachers—in secondary education and in teacher training colleges.357

One teacher told Human Rights Watch that corruption further diminished his salary, that he and others had to pay a portion of their salaries—300 out of 1,800 afghanis (U.S.$6 out of $37)—to Kandahar provincial education department officials in 2004. Security problems led them to conclude that the meager pay was not worth it. “The teachers gathered and said that for 1,500 afghanis it’s not worth the risk of being accused of diverting from our religion,” he told us. “Big officials go by helicopter, even just to go to Spin Boldak [a major crossing point across the border to Pakistan, less than one hundred kilometers from Kandahar on a busy road]. They get their pay [regardless]. But we who were getting only 1,800 afghanis are open targets to the Taliban!”358

Several individuals involved in training teachers with government and NGO programs told Human Rights Watch that the Ministry of Education needs to do more to attract and retain women teachers, including creating special measures for recruiting women, adopting more flexible accreditation programs for women teachers, and providing housing and protection at teacher training programs offered in urban centers so that women from rural areas can participate.359 Much more must be done to keep girls, many who would become teachers, from dropping out of school.

Low Quality of Education

The low quality of education also deters some parents from sending children to school.

A staff member of an NGO that provides community-based education noted that the low quality of education and the low returns on education discourage children, especially girls, from attending school: “There’s the practical aspect of education—most children who do go to school for three years don’t know how to read and write. If they do, they lose it quickly because there’s nothing to read. . . . so there’s a problem with motivation to go to school, especially girls, because what are they going to do with it?”360

Parents and children may also be less willing to take security and cultural risks if the value and quality of education is perceived as low. “‘Too far and too dangerous’ can be an excuse,” an education specialist for an international NGO noted. “Why take even a small risk if you don’t see the benefit?”361

Classes are typically very large—with an average of seventy-one students per teacher at the primary level362—and meet for only around three hours a day. Schools lack teaching materials and schools supplies; many teachers rely on poor teaching methods such as rote-learning, use corporal punishment, lack knowledge of basic subjects, and are frequently absent;363 the curriculum is poor (although steps have been taken to reform the curriculum); and teachers and students may discriminate against children from minority ethnic groups.364

According to women in Kandahar: “Most parents see that the standard of education is too low and they see that their children are not really learning anything—there are too many free periods without teachers.”365 A high school student in Kandahar city confirmed, noting that the previous day, her class had a teacher for only one class period, “the rest of the time was spent chatting. The principal teaches various classes but went off to Mecca,” she said. “Compared with Pakistan’s schools, it’s not even a school.” 366

Many teachers have not finished grade twelve.367 For example, the Afghan Research and Evaluation Unit found in 2004 that in Wardak:

[O]nly 6 percent of teachers have more than a grade 12 education. In Kandahar, more than 65 percent of teachers have not completed 12th grade. Some in-service teacher training is now being provided by NGOs, but most teachers have had little or no formal teacher training over the course of their careers. Training is still lacking for education administration, head teachers and school management.368

Some teachers have no formal education at all.369

International donors, the Afghan government, and NGOs are all providing forms of teacher training, with a significant example being the internationally-funded Teacher Education Program (TEP), a joint project of the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Higher Education.370

Poverty

Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world.371 Poverty keeps children from attending school because they have to work for income or in the home, or because they cannot afford school supplies or transport. Research by the Afghan Research and Evaluation Unit in 2005 found that 50 percent of households surveyed contained working children, that these children may be the family’s primary income earners, and that “[a] household’s poverty and the opportunity costs involved in sending working children to school are primary factors inhibiting the enrolment of both boys and girls (especially girls).”372 Both the opportunity costs and the actual costs of education increase as children grow older.373 The Afghanistan-based Human Rights Research and Advocacy Consortium estimated in 2004 that in Kabul province the average annual cost of sending a child to first grade was 350 afghanis (U.S.$7), to fifth grade 1,000 afghanis (U.S.$20), and to ninth grade 1,700 afghanis (U.S.$35).374 These costs range from 4 to 20 percent of the per capita income of around U.S.$300.375

Where poverty forces parents to choose among children, they are generally more likely to send sons rather than daughters to school (in part because of expectations of higher future earnings from boys). According to the Afghan Research and Evaluation Unit’s 2006 study on household decision making and school enrollment: “Parents may desire education for both sons and daughters, but be constrained by a combination of poverty (which inhibits the enrolment of both boys and girls) and their fear of negative social pressure (specifically in relation to girls’ enrolment).”376

Security problems may increase the cost of education, such as making it necessary to pay for transport or spare another person to accompany children to school. Access to transport generally especially affects girls’ access to education, as the parents, teachers, and school administrators of girls’ schools in Gardez, Herat, and Kandahar city with whom we spoke emphasized.377 A mother in Kandahar explained why she thought her daughters were the only ones in her neighborhood who went to school:

I hired a driver for my daughters so they won’t hear people talking about them while they are walking. We can afford to buy it. In Pakistan, I’ve seen school buses pick girls up for school directly in front of the house so they don’t have to walk. If that happens, more and more kids will go to school.378

The director of a girls’ middle school in Herat Province explained why he thought most girls in his area did not go to school:

Only around fifty students manage to arrange their own transportation: they rented a mini-bus as a group and it is good, but not all people can pay money for transportation. If there is any support from the government side to provide girls school with transportation, it can be a good way to encourage girls’ education.379

Negative Attitudes About Education

Opposition to secular education and to any education for girls predates the Taliban, which imposed the harshest restrictions observed in the last century. While there is now considerable demand for education, negative or conservative attitudes about education still keep many children out of school. These include beliefs that education is not important, that girls should not be educated, or that girls can be educated only, for example, by trusted female teachers, separated from boys, and behind school walls. However even in very conservative areas that Human Rights Watch visited, people told us that they wanted education for their girls and for their boys.

In the 2003 Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS), when individuals were asked about reasons children were not enrolled, 15.0 percent answered “not necessary” and 4.4 percent answered “feel ashamed.”380 Mahmad Omar, of Kandahar, explained to a journalist why he was educating some of his sons but not his daughters: “School is not for girls,” he said. “I don’t let them go. Girls should be at home. If they go to school, people will see them on the street, and that would be very shameful for me. . . . After they go to school, girls think that they can go anywhere, that they do not have to wear the hijab [head covering], and that they don’t have to hide their faces. Islam does not accept that.”381 Practices such as early marriage of girls also result in their being taken out of school when they are engaged or married. The prohibition on married girls attending school was officially rescinded by presidential decree in 2004 but this is not necessarily known or enforced at the local level.382

Resistance to educating girls increases as girls grow older, also the point at which most girls typically must travel farther to reach a secondary school, if one is available at all. A teacher in a girls’ school in Wardak explained that while there was a high school for boys in the village, there was none for girls, so no girls were attending secondary school. “The girls cannot go beyond sixth grade. It’s our culture—they can’t leave the village. One thing is culture, the other is security.”383 A girl in Parwan told Human Rights Watch: “We are concerned about the future, the next year, because the school now is up to ninth grade. For the next year we suggested extending the school into a high school. We as girls can not travel out of district. We need at least a high school for girls, and otherwise our education will remain incomplete.”384

Insecurity may reinforce conservative beliefs about girls’ education, for example by exposing girls to real physical risks either at school or en route and by preventing or discouraging female teachers from going to certain areas. The World Bank has noted:

[I]t is difficult to separate the issue of cultural barriers to mobility from those of security—how much of the constraint on women’s mobility, and allowing girls to walk to school, is related to the poor security situation—which may in fact improve as political stability comes about? How much of the demand is constrained by the lack of supply of female teachers, which in turn may be related to security as well as differing cultural norms?385

A man heading a girls’ school in Parwan explained how insecurity affects his efforts to encourage girls to come to school:

More girls can attend school with the emergence of a better cultural environment. And that is only possible with establishment of overall security. When the security of an area is guaranteed, families will not feel unsafe to send their daughters to schools, and, on the other hand, irresponsible persons will not have any chance to go around and disturb people, especially women and girls attending schools.

I think security is the first priority—once it is safe, people are more interested in getting education. They will feel secure to send their daughters to school.386

Because of insecurity problems in the area as well as “traditional society,” he said, “I would estimate only 10 percent of female students’ participation in the school, while 75 percent of boys are normally attending the school in the area.”387

Moreover, according to a teacher trainer in Paktia, people ideologically opposed to education nurture parents’ fears about girls’ education: “In Paktia, the cultural problem for educating girls is that people feel shame about sending their daughters to school. But there’s also the influence of people who oppose girls’ education. . . . People who oppose the government, are under foreign influence, say girls’ education is against religion. Paktia is a border region, Pakistan has influence and agents who tell people their daughters will get stolen; people fear that their daughters will run away.”388

Culture in Afghanistan varies widely among individuals and groups. One man’s description of how his heavily Pashtun community in Maruf district, Kandahar, reacted when the schools were closed there illustrates this variation, even within a single community:

Ours is a Pashtun community and they are a very religious people who have always preferred madrassas to school, but when a school was there they sent their children. . . .

[When the schools closed] there were different kinds of people with different thoughts. Those who have children or relatives with the Taliban were very happy, but those who wanted education and culture were very sad. If the Taliban find out now that there is a teacher or a student, then they will be very cruel to them.

I have six sons [all previously enrolled in school]. I cannot send my children anywhere to get educated. You yourself judge—I’ve got money, I’m educated. But if I cannot send my children to school, how can a farmer, a shepherd, a carpenter send his children?389

An education official in Maywand district, Kandahar, told Human Rights Watch: “It was long ago when people didn’t understand the need for education. Now everyone wants education but can’t get it.”390 And a tribal elder from northern Helmand said: “The people want schools, even for girls. We are losing a golden opportunity now to lift our children.”391

One reason for greater openness to education now is Afghans’ exposure to school as refugees.392 An estimated 4 million Afghans fled from war to Pakistan and Iran between 1980 and 2001. In refugee camps, schools were organized and many Afghans developed an appreciation for education, or were exposed to education for the first time. As a district education director in Wardak explained to Human Rights Watch: “I was a teacher and I graduated from Kabul University in 1357 [1978-1979]. I didn’t like girls’ education, but since I moved to Pakistan as a migrant, although I was a mujahed fighting the communists, I changed.”393 Staff of an NGO providing community-based education in the southeast described the change as follows: “In the past years it was very difficult to establish girls’ schools in rural areas, but people went to Pakistan and other countries and they have come to understand the importance of education because in camps they had schools for girls and boys. They have changed their ideas.”394

Returned refugees may find themselves in conflict with the members of their community who stayed in Afghanistan. A woman in Kandahar told us: “I was a teacher in Zargona high school before the elections, and I had students taken out of school—some were my relatives. I talked with mothers who told me that they didn’t want anyone to point at them, and some of them started crying and wanted to go back to Pakistan.395

A member of a women’s group in Kandahar city pointed out that “[w]hile culture is an issue, security is more important because even those people who want to break tradition are not able to.”396

NGOs cited measures that had allowed them to introduce education into communities for the first time, when they have the security to operate. Rangina Hamidi, with Afghans for Civil Society in Kandahar, described one approach that NGOs have been forced to employ:

I’ve been working here for three years. Yes, it’s a conservative society but there are methods to deal with it. It’s true that a majority of people don’t send girls to school. But that’s because they haven’t seen the benefit of education in their lives and less because traditions are hard to change. So we suggest that home schools for girls be created. Our income generation projects have been successful because they are home-based. We give them an opportunity to earn money but also within their tradition and we give them information about the outside world. It’s long-term development so that the next generation of women hopefully their daughters will have better lives. But this is long term.397

Human Rights Watch heard examples of women and girls, and their male family members, taking great risks to get education when opportunities are available, even in very culturally conservative environments. For example, one young woman in her late teens attending a teacher education seminar told Human Rights Watch, “We need education—we lied to come here. I told my mother I went to get water. I had to get my brother to convince my other brother and my mother to allow me to attend the workshop.”398 Researchers from the Afghan Research and Evaluation Unit also found:

If a daughter is enrolled in school, the fear of being shamed by extended family members in other households, neighbours and others is widespread. “People talk,” and often this is too humiliating for members of a household—both male and female—to bear. . . . However, both villagers and urban-dwellers are aware that widespread changes are occurring in gender relations in both the public and private spheres, and many parents—fathers and mothers—choose to ignore gossip, take the social risk and send their daughters to school.399

Asefa, age eighteen, told a journalist that “[m]en in the street laugh at me, and call me names. They say, ‘Why are you going to school? You’re a girl and you don’t need this.’ But I begged my family for months to let me go, and they finally did.”400 But many of her friends had dropped out, she said.401

Even individuals who are willing to take these risks cannot do so for long without protection or support from government, community, and religious leaders. For example, a teacher from Deh Yek district in southern Ghazni told us that despite great demand for girls’ primary education, “this year we had more girl students than we could handle,” he said, the bombing of teachers’ homes and threats against girls’ education may prove successful. “It’s a real possibility that girls’ schools won’t operate next year,” he concluded. “Generally the people support girls’ education. It’s the ignorant jihadis and the Taliban against the government who fight this. . . . The ignorant people say if you educate your girl, she will become independent, she won’t get married.”402

The experience of teachers in Gardez, Paktia, who were attending a short teacher education seminar well-illustrates the need for protection for teachers and students.403 One told Human Rights Watch, “As returned refugees who were educated outside the country, we are now having problems, now we’re not allowed to learn because of tribal persecution. We were educated in Pakistan, but our parents and tribal elders now threaten us.”404

According to five eyewitnesses, on Saturday, December 3, 2005, a local malik named Yousuff Khan Berzat and his strongmen threatened the teachers as they prepared to leave the camp for the seminar and threw a rock at their car. According to one witness, Yousuff Khan said that “nobody should go [to the seminar] and if anyone goes then we will snatch off what you are wearing [or ‘we will make you lose your chastity’]. You are disgracing women. Nobody needs your education. Now that you got educated you have brought at bad name to us.” The teachers missed one day of the seminar but then sought help from local government officials. Yousuff Khan was arrested on Sunday, but released the same day.

On the day that we interviewed the teachers, they said the tribe was deciding whether to banish them. This was no idle threat—we interviewed another teacher there who had already been banished for her work. “The Iskanderkhel tribe will decide whether to cast out whoever goes to the workshop,” one woman explained, “they will be thrown out of the camp. There are ten girls from the refugee camp, all Iskanderkhel tribe. We’ve all faced problems. But if I don’t work, there will be no money for the family. . . . We don’t have any security, if we become teachers, we can’t go to teach, our students will be threatened.”405 Another girl said: “We are afraid but we wish to continue teaching and also get educated ourselves. There are a lot of people among those against us who can’t even offer prayers correctly and we want to educate people. But there is no security.”




[290] For example, education staff of an NGO working in eastern Afghanistan noted that when there is fighting “in some villages, people don’t want to put their children in danger so they keep them home for a while.” Affected areas, he said, included Laghman (Alishing district), Nuristan, and parts of Kunar. Human Rights Watch interview with NGO education staff, Kabul, December 22, 2005.

[291] Human Rights Watch interview with U.N. expert, Kabul, December 5, 2005.

[292] Human Rights Watch interviews with NGO staff, Kabul, December 15 and 22, 2005.

[293] Human Rights Watch interview with NGO education staff, Kabul, December 15, 2005.

[294] Human Rights Watch interview with Horia Mossadeq, Human Rights Research and Advocacy Consortium, Kabul, December 4, 2005.

[295] Human Rights Watch interview with director, Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, Mazar-e Sharif, September 11, 2005.

[296] Ibid.

[297] Human Rights Watch interview with mother of five daughters, Kandahar city, December 8, 2005.

[298] Information about barriers to education is drawn from sources that include Human Rights Watch interviews with education staff from NGOs that provide or support home-based schools, Kabul, December 7 and 15, 2005; Central Statistics Office, and UNICEF, Afghanistan—Progress of Provinces, Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey 2003; Education working group, “Results and Discussion of Education Data collected in the Afghanistan National Risk and Vulnerability Assessment 2003,” April 2005, http://www.mrrd.gov.af/vau/NRVA%2003%20Downloads/NRVA%202003%20Education%20report%20English%20April%202005.pdf (retrieved February 9, 2006); World Bank, Afghanistan: National Reconstruction and Poverty Reduction—the Role of Women in Afghanistan’s Future, pp. 32, 48; Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission , Economic and Social Rights in Afghanistan.

[299] See, for example, Education working group, “Results and Discussion of Education Data collected in the Afghanistan National Risk and Vulnerability Assessment 2003,” p. 24.

[300] Human Rights Watch interview with Maywand director of district education, Kandahar city, December 10, 2005.

[301] Human Rights Watch interview with NGO staff, Kabul, December 17, 2005.

[302] See, for example, ANSO and CARE, “NGO Insecurity in Afghanistan,” p. 2.

[303] Human Rights Watch interview with Afghan NGO staff, Kabul, December 15, 2005 (describing precautions taken in Ghazni).

[304] Ibid.

[305] Human Rights Watch interview with Rangina Hamidi, Afghans for Civil Society, Kandahar, December 8, 2005.

[306] Human Rights Watch interviews with international NGO staff members, Kabul, December 3, 5, and 15, 2005.

[307] Human Rights Watch interview with NGO staff, Kabul, December 4, 2005.

[308] Human Rights Watch interview with international NGO staff, Kabul, December 2, 2005.

[309] Human Rights Watch interview with Larry Goldman, Deputy Chief of Party, Afghanistan Primary Education Program (APEP), Creative Associates, Kabul, December 14, 2005.

[310] Human Rights Watch interview with World Bank official, Kabul, December 4, 2005.

[311] Human Rights Watch interview with U.N. official, Kabul, December 5, 2005.

[312] Human Rights Watch interview with international NGO staff, Kabul, December 2, 2005.

[313] Human Rights Watch interview with NGO staff, Gardez, December 5, 2005.

[314] Human Rights Watch interview with OXFAM staff, December 10, 2005.

[315] Human Rights Watch interview with international NGO staff,Kabul, December 13, 2005.

[316] Human Rights Watch interview with NGO staff, Kabul, December 4, 2005.

[317] Human Rights Watch interview with Afghan NGO staff, Kabul, December 15, 2005.

[318] Human Rights Watch interview with district education director, Saydabad district, Wardak, December 21, 2005.

[319] Human Rights Watch interview with Teacher Education Program trainer for Badghis, Kabul, December 3, 2005.

[320] Human Rights Watch interview with Mohammed Azim Karbalai, Director of Planning Department, Ministry of Education, Kabul, December 15, 2005.

[321] Human Rights Watch interview with U.N, staff, Kabul, December 5, 2005.

[322] Rights Watch interview with U.N. official, Gardez, December 5, 2005.

[323] Declan Walsh, “The Wild Frontier,” The Guardian (London), January 31, 2006.

[324] World Bank, Afghanistan: National Reconstruction and Poverty Reduction—the Role of Women in Afghanistan’s Future, p. 32.

[325] The Ministry of Education reported in 2004-2005 that 964 schools had been constructed and 236 had been rehabilitated by 2004-2005. Ministry of Education, Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, “Development Plan: Education Priorities for Improvement,” 1384, box 6. Regarding rural communities without schools, see Vulnerability Analysis Unit, MRRD, in collaboration with World Bank & WFP VAM, “National Risk and Vulnerability Assessment 2003 Policy Brief,” n.d., http://www.mrrd.gov.af/vau/NRVA%2003%20Downloads/NRVA%202003%20Policy%20Brief%20October%202004.doc (retrieved February 9, 2006).

[326] Education working group, “Results and Discussion of Education Data collected in the Afghanistan National Risk and Vulnerability Assessment 2003,” pp. 23, 24.

[327] Human Rights Watch interview with Waheed Hameedi, CHA, Kabul, December 15, 2005.

[328] Human Rights Watch interview, Kandahar, December 8, 2005.

[329] Human Rights Watch interview with eighteen-year-old woman in grade nine, village in Parwan province, May2005.

[330] Human Rights Watch interview with eighteen-year-old woman in grade nine, village in Parwan province, May 2005.

[331] Human Rights Watch group interview with Khaja Mohammed Shah Siddiqi, head of the shura [local council], and twelve elders, Bagrami district, Kabul, May 11, 2005.

[332] Human Rights Watch interview with grandmother of school-age children, village in Laghman province, June 7, 2005.

[333] Human Rights Watch interview with director of girls’ middle school, Herat province, July 18, 2005.

[334] Human Rights Watch interview with Hangama Anwari, Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, Kabul, May 7, 2005.

[335] Of those surveyed, 56.2 percent (1,624) gave reasons for not sending girls to school: 838 of those persons cited distance and security as a reason for not sending girls, compared with 411 citing distance and security as a reason for not sending boys. Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, Economic and Social Rights in Afghanistan, p. 32. This survey likely underestimates the effect of security as researchers were unable to go to the most insecure districts and provinces, including Uruzgan. Ibid., p. 8.

[336] Human Rights Watch group interview with Khoadja Mohamad Sha Sidiki, Rais of the Shura, and twelve elders, Bagrami district, Kabul, May 11, 2005.

[337] Human Rights Watch interview with mother of a boy and a girl attending school, village in Parwan province, May 2005.

[338] Human Rights Watch interview with NGO education staff, Kabul, December 15, 2005.

[339] In 2003, 25.8 percent of families surveyed gave “inadequate facility” as a reason for not enrolling children in school.Central Statistics Office, UNICEF, “Afghanistan—Progress of Provinces, Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey 2003, pp. 68-69.

[340] In 2002, only 29 percent of schools functioned in a dedicated school building; 10 percent were held outside. “Of the schools with buildings, 30 percent have been completely or mostly destroyed, 8 percent have sustained minor damage or only require cosmetic repair, and another 7 percent are partially destroyed.” Evans, et al, “A Guide to Government in Afghanistan,” p. 125, citing Rapid Assessment of Learning Spaces (Ministry of Education and UNICEF update, July 31, 2002).

[341] Human Rights Watch interview with Abu Zaher, head teacher of Nesh district, Kandahar province, Kandahar, December 10, 2005.

[342] Human Rights Watch interview with NGO education staff, Kabul. December 12, 2005 (regarding demand for surrounding walls).

[343] Human Rights Watch interview with Mohammed Azim Karbalai, Director of Planning Department, Ministry of Education, Kabul, December 15, 2005.

[344] Human Rights Watch group interview with TEP trainees, Gardez, December 6, 2005.

[345] According to the Asian Development Bank, one third of schools had no water source and less than 15 percent had toilets for children in 2003. World Bank, Afghanistan: National Reconstruction and Poverty Reduction—the Role of Women in Afghanistan’s Future, p. 42 (citing ADB, 2003, p. 8). By comparison, the Rapid Assessment of Learning Spaces found in 2002 that “Fifty-two percent of the schools lack water facilities, and 75 percent lack sanitation facilities.” Evans, et al, “A Guide to Government in Afghanistan,” p. 125, citing Rapid Assessment of Learning Spaces (Ministry of Education and UNICEF update, July 31, 2002).

[346] See Education working group, “Results and Discussion of Education Data collected in the Afghanistan National Risk and Vulnerability Assessment 2003,” April 2005.

[347] Human Rights Watch interview with NGO education staff, Gardez, December 5, 2005.

[348] Human Rights Watch interview with Mohammed Azim Karbalai, Director, Planning Department, Ministry of Education, Kabul, March 11, 2006.

[349] According to draft data from the Ministry of Education, in 2004-2005 there were 121,838 teachers, of whom 28 percent of whom were female. Of those, 35 percent were in Kabul. Ministry of Education, Education Management Information System (draft), 2004-2005. There are far more male teachers than female teachers in all provinces except in Kabul city, where there are more women than men teachers. Spink, AREU, “Afghanistan Teacher Education Project (TEP) Situational Analysis,” p. 13.

[350] Ministry of Education, Education Management Information System (draft), 2004-2005. According to these data, there were fewer than one hundred female teachers in 2004-2005 in the following provinces: Badghis, Kapisa, Khost, Nuristan, Paktika, Uruzgan, and Zabul.

[351] Human Rights Watch interview with NGO education staff, Gardez, December 5, 2005.

[352] Human Rights Watch interview with teacher from Dey Yek district, Ghazni, December 20, 2005.

[353] For example, a senior education provider told us: “I just sent teachers to a training center in Jalalabad and encouraged women teachers and trainers but the literacy level is so low that where can I get the teachers from?” Human Rights Watch interview, Kabul, December 5, 2005.

[354] Human Rights Watch interview TEP staff, Kabul, December 3, 2005.

[355] “We lack senior teachers—ours get 1,800 afghanis [U.S.$37],” an education official from Maywand district told us. “Everyone wants to be a trader or a businessman or a shopkeeper to earn more—they can get 150-200 afghanis (U.S.$3-$4) per day.” Human Rights Watch interview with district education for Maywand district, Kandahar city, December 10, 2005. A teacher from rural Ghazni said, “Our pay is another big problem. The 2000 afghanis pay is too low—it discourages teachers. Trained teachers instead work for NGOs.” Human Rights Watch interview with teacher from Deh Yek district, Ghazni, December 20, 2005. See also Spink, AREU, “Afghanistan Teacher Education Project (TEP) Situational Analysis,” p. 16.

[356] Human Rights Watch interview with former teacher trained in Iran. Kandahar, December 8, 2005; Spink, AREU, “Afghanistan Teacher Education Project (TEP) Situational Analysis,” p. 34 (describing complicated, bureaucratic, and costly process for accreditation of returning teachers that deters most teachers from going through it).

[357] There were only 375 female students in pre-service training in Afghanistan’s sixteen functioning teacher training colleges in 2004, 285 (76 percent) of whom were studying in Kabul, where Pashto language was not offered. Another 4,241 students attending in-service training, around half of whom were women. Ibid., pp. 17-19.

[358] Human Rights Watch interview with teacher from Maruf district, Kandahar, December 10, 2005.

[359] Human Rights Watch interviews with TEP staff, Kabul, December 3, 2005; and NGO education staff persons, Kabul, December 2 and 4, 2005.

[360] Human Rights Watch interview with staff of NGO providing home and community-based education, Kabul, December 7, 2005.

[361] Human Rights Watch interview with NGO education specialist, Kabul, December 2, 2005.

[362] The ratio varies by province and drops dramatically at the secondary level. Spink, AREU, “Afghanistan Teacher Education Project (TEP) Situational Analysis,” p. 11 (citing data from the Ministry of Education and noting that data on the numbers of teachers and students are incomplete).

[363] See Ibid., pp. 30-31; Education working group, “Results and Discussion of Education Data collected in the Afghanistan National Risk and Vulnerability Assessment 2003,” p. 27.

[364] See Ibid., p. 32 (citing UNHCR, “Returnee Monitoring Report 2003-2004,” unpublished document, 2004).

[365] Human Rights Watch group interview with women who served on the constitution commission secretariatto women’s affairs, Kandahar city, December 8, 2005.

[366] Human Rights Watch interview with eleventh-grade student, Kandahar, December 8, 2005.

[367] Although the Ministry of Education told us in March 2006 that 71 percent of teachers (99,300 of 140,000 teachers) had finished grade twelve or higher, information from the Teacher Education Program (TEP), which is affiliated with the ministry, indicates otherwise. See Spink, AREU, “Afghanistan Teacher Education Project (TEP) Situational Analysis,” p. 14, citing the Ministry of Education the National Development Plan (50 percent); and Human Rights Watch interview with TEP staff, Kabul, December 3, 2005 (40 percent).

[368] Evans, et al, “A Guide to Government in Afghanistan,” p. 125.

[369] According to a representative of TEP program: “About 20,000 teachers have no formal education—mosque education, some literacy, that’s it.” Human Rights Watch interview withTEP staff, Kabul, December 3, 2005. See also Agha Khan Development Network, “Survey Results from the Rural Education Support Programme,” Baghlan, Afghanistan, 2004, cited in Spink, AREU, “Afghanistan Teacher Education Project (TEP) Situational Analysis,” p. 14 (10 percent of 3,332 teachers surveyed in Baghlan province had never attended any form of formal education).

[370] Since 2003, some 52,000 teachers have received short term training courses, which included pedagogy, language arts and mine risk education etc. Education and Vocational Training—Public Investment Program, March 29, 2005, pp. 7, 15, cited in Munsch, “Education,” p. 3.

[371] UNDP, Human Development Report 2005, p. 45.

[372] Pamela Hunte, “Looking Beyond the School Walls: Household Decision-Making and School Enrollment in Afghanistan,” AREU Briefing Paper, March 2006, p. 5, http://www.areu.org.af/publications/Looking%20Beyond%20the%20School%20Walls.pdf (retrieved April 4, 2006). The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission reached similar conclusions in 2006, based on research it conducted the previous year. Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, Economic and Social Rights in Afghanistan, pp. 14-18.

When asked about causes of not enrolling their children in school in the 2003 Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS), 17.2 percent of parents cited domestic work, 7.1 percent cited household Income, and 5.2 said school was expensive. Vulnerability Analysis Unit, MRRD, “National Risk and Vulnerability Assessment 2003 Policy Brief,” The World Bank, Afghanistan: National Reconstruction and Poverty Reduction—the Role of Women in Afghanistan’s Future, p. 47.

[373] The Human Rights Research and Advocacy Consortium, Report Card…, p. 2.

[374] Ibid.

[375] According to Afghanistan’s Central Bank governor Noorullah Delawari, per capita income in 2005-2006 reached U.S.$293 dollars. “Afghanistan's per capita income likely to rise, says central bank,” Agence France-Presse, April 1, 2006.

[376] Pamela Hunte, “Looking Beyond the School Walls…, p. 5.

[377] Human Rights Watch group interviews with directors of girls’ schools, Herat, July 18, 2005; administrator and teachers at girls’ high school, Gardez, December 6, 2005; trainees at a teacher education seminar, Gardez, December 6, 2005; and secondary school teachers, Kandahar, December 11, 2005.

[378] Human Rights Watch interview, Kandahar, December 8, 2005.

[379] Human Rights Watch interview with director of girls middle school, Herat province, July 18, 2005.

[380] Central Statistics Office; UNICEF, “Afghanistan—Progress of Provinces, Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey 2003, pp. 68-69.

[381] Wahidullah Amani, “No School Today,” IWPR, December 23, 2005.

[382] Human Rights Watch interview with Horia Mossadeq, Human Rights Research and Advocacy Consortium, Kabul, Dec. 4, 2005 (noting that in many schools, the principal and teachers do not like engaged girls to attend); World Bank, Afghanistan: National Reconstruction and Poverty Reduction—the Role of Women in Afghanistan’s Future; Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, Economic and Social Rights in Afghanistan, 32.

[383] Human Rights Watch interview, Wardak, December 21, 2005.

[384] Human Rights Watch interview with twenty-two-year-old woman in grade nine, village in Parwan province, May2005.

[385] World Bank, Afghanistan: National Reconstruction and Poverty Reduction—the Role of Women in Afghanistan’s Future, p. 32.

[386] Human Rights Watch interview with male head of girls’ school, village in Parwan province, May 2005.

[387] Ibid.

[388] Human Rights Watch interview with Shahghasi Zarmati, TEP trainer in Paktia, Kabul, December 3, 2005.

[389] Human Rights Watch interview with representative from Maruf district, Kandahar, December 9, 2005.

[390] Human Rights Watch interview with district education director for Maywand, Kandahar city, December 10, 2005.

[391] Human Rights Watch interview with Haji Hamdan Ahmad Khan, tribal elder from Kojaki province, northern Helmand, Kandahar, December 7, 2005.

[392] See also Pamela Hunte, “Looking Beyond the School Walls …,” p. 3.

[393] Human Rights Watch interview with district education director, Saydabad district, Wardak, December 21, 2005.

[394] Human Rights Watch interview with NGO education staff for the Eastern district, Kabul, December 22, 2005.

[395] Human Rights Watch interview with women provincial representative, Kandahar, December 11, 2005.

[396] Women’s group discussion, Kandahar city, December 8, 2005.

[397] Human Rights Watch interview with Rangina Hamidi, Afghans for Civil Society, Kandahar, December 8, 2005.

[398] Human Rights Watch group interview with TEP trainees in Gardez, December 6, 2005.

[399] Pamela Hunte, “Looking Beyond the School Walls…,” pp. 5, 7.

[400] Wahidullah Amani, “No School Today,” IWPR, December 23, 2005.

[401] Ibid.

[402] Human Rights Watch interview with teacher from Deh Yek district, Ghazni, December 20, 2005.

[403] The following account is taken from Human Rights Watch interviews with the teachers and with a male eye witness, Gardez, December 5 and 6, 2005.

[404] Human Rights Watch group interview with TEP trainees in Gardez, December 6, 2005.

[405] Ibid.


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