DEVELOPMENTS

Afghanistan’s history is a complex and violent one marked by a series of foreign evasions and occupations. The twentieth century history of Afghanistan is highlighted by its gaining independence from Great Britain in 1919, the Soviet Union invasion in 1979 followed by a lengthy proxy war with U.S. backed mujahedin forces.

For all intents and purposes the conflict forced the Soviet Union to withdraw in 1989 amid heavy losses of men, equipment and more importantly it saddled the Soviet Union with a huge financial investment that they could ill-afford when coupled with its crumbling domestic situation.

Following the terrorist attacks on the United States in 2001 by the Al-Qaeda terrorist network, the United States invaded and in the process drove the Taliban out of power and further East to the border with Pakistan. This also had the effect of forcing Al-Qaeda to take refuge in the mountains and hills in that region. The Taliban fighters that chose to remain are now engaging the United States and its allies in a costly and deadly counterinsurgency that has made rehabilitation increasingly difficult.

The Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation estimates that the United States has spent 177.5 billion USD on Afghanistan since the United States invaded in 2001. One of many dilemmas that the United States faces in Afghanistan is bolstering a government that many Afghans see as corrupt. Another is the effort to phase out poppy cultivation as the crop of choice which in-turn fuels a global hunger for heroin and puts money into the pocket of the Taliban which in-turn fuels their insurgent efforts against coalition forces. Finally, the United States must turn around a failed state so that it can be functional on the international stage.

All of this is feasible in the log run but an important component of this will be education. Education is the key to Afghanistan’s future.

BACKGROUND

The crux of Afghanistan’s problem is that the country has been ignored for decades and its infrastructure must be rebuilt.

The attacks by the Taliban on school children and schools themselves must be minimized. Ostensibly, Afghan parents have to want to send their children to school everyday despite security concerns. By the end of 2010, the Afghan Ministry of Education estimates that “net enrolment in primary schools for girls and boys will be at least 60% and 75% respectively; a new curriculum will be operational in all secondary schools; the number of female teachers will be increased by 50%; 70% of Afghanistan's teachers will have passed a competency test and a system for assessing learning achievement will be in place.”

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) points out that “increasing access to quality primary and secondary schools is a program priority. USAID is improving basic education through programs aimed at strengthening ministry capacity, improving teacher performance and skills development, and ensuring adequate school materials and environments for learning. Because Afghans lost years of formal schooling under the Taliban, many students are not at their appropriate grade level. USAID created an accelerated learning program, compressing two years of study into a single year, through innovative teaching techniques. This program, and the new 2006-2010 programs, builds on past successes such as training approximately 15,360 teachers, professors, and community-based teachers, as well as 124 teacher trainers and administrators. To support curriculum needs, USAID printed and distributed over 49 million textbooks nationwide in Dari and Pashto for grades 1-12. In 2006, USAID provided funding for over 11 million new curriculum textbooks for grades 1, 2, 4, and 5.”

Improvements can be made to the educational system but money must continue to flow into the country by way of the U.S. government and international donors. If Afghanistan is ignored then the country will relapse into decay once again. Since 2002 alone, according to USAID, 524 schools have been refurbished and 130 are under construction. According to NATO there are 7 million children attending some form of a school, which is a six-fold increase since 2001. Currently there are 10 universities open throughout Afghanistan as compared to just one under the Taliban.

The easiest part of the equation is the actual physical construction of schools and other facilities. The difficult part which has yet to be accomplished is decreasing government corruption and insuring that both boys and girls have a safe place to attend classes. If the numbers being put forth by the Education Ministry hold true then true ground will have been won in the battle to educate the children of Afghanistan. To insure that this does happen, the U.S. military and the ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) must continue to take the Taliban to task. In short, defeat them or relegate them to a nuisance, as the U.S. military did to Al Qaeda and other insurgent forces in Iraq. If this does occur then the Afghan people will feel that they have a stake in their country and assume more responsibility in every segment of their society from participating in elections to sending their children to school. Since 2003, according to the Ministry of Education, it was calculated that thousands of young girls were still not exposed to some form of education due to the Taliban threat.

A story, as told in the New York Times in 2007 illustrates this problem. “With their teacher absent, 10 students were allowed to leave school early. These were the girls the gunmen saw first, 10 easy targets walking hand-in-hand through the blue metal gate and on to the winding dirt road.” The ensuing bloodshed left two girls dead and six wounded. In order to insure that incidents like this do not happen security for rural populations must be insured. When security improves along with funding from the U.S. and the international community, school enrollment will increase and all children in Afghanistan will have access to an education.

Most specifically, the near 90% illiteracy rate for women in urban centers and the near 100% illiteracy rate in rural centers for many Afghan women will need to be addressed further. I make note of this because unlike in other countries that are second or third tier states, the education of Afghan children will be a pointless use of development dollars until the women (and men) are educated. Traditionally, women are the caregivers in Afghan society and educating the children will be easier to achieve if the women of Afghanistan are educated as well or at the very least they recognize the value of an education for their children.

ANALYSIS 

What the U.S. accomplished since 2002 in Afghanistan is quite miraculous. USAID was also able to implement a program to train and send out into the field 10,500 teachers and, according to USAID, “between 2002 and 2006, USAID printed and distributed over 60 million textbooks nationwide in Dari and Pashto for grades 1-12 covering such subjects as language, math, biology, and geography. During 2008, USAID, in collaboration with the Danish International Development Agency, plans to print 23.5 million new curriculum textbooks for grades 1-6. To strengthen the Ministries of Education and Higher Education, USAID provides advisors to help develop and implement education policy. USAID also supports the International School of Kabul, an English language high school with an enrollment of approximately 260 students from more than 20 countries, the majority of whom are Afghans.”

So progress is being made throughout Afghanistan in regards to education and time will tell if this effort pays off.

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John Lyman is an intern at Foreign Policy Digest.