PUL-I-ALAM (SW): The fact that a district located at a distance of less than 100 kilometer south of Kabul has produced only one high-school graduate in over a decade puts a question mark on the tireless efforts and generous foreign funding to lift Afghanistan’s education system.
Kharwar is a remote and volatile district in Logar province located around 90 kilometers south of Kabul. With an estimated population of around 30, 000, insurgency and lack of attention on the part of government has denied this part of the country the fruits of relative peace since the fall of Taliban.
According to the students and local elders, this district has 11 schools more than half of which are non-functional. So far, only one boy has managed to graduate from here but he too lost his life in a militant attack, local said.
Naser Khan, a local elder in Kharwar blamed the provincial education department for the terrible state of affairs. He said the only graduate district produced in the past 14 years was killed by a roadside bomb when he was heading to Pul-I-Alam, the provincial capital to take part in entry exams for higher education.
Samar Gul Rashed, Kharwar district chief vows to change all that. He told SW that ensuring equal opportunities for literacy in Kharwar was among his top priorities.
Many other blame remote location of the district for its problems related to education.
Muhammad Seddiq Stanikzai, deputy head for the provincial Education Department said that the Ministry of Education (MoE) has established 11 schools in the district including 3 high-schools and 3 elementary-schools that cater around 3,000 students.
Stankikzai added the MoE has assigned 78 teachers in Kharwar districts out of which 8 teachers are high-school graduates.
Ironically, Kharwar and Azra districts in Logar have almost zero percent female literacy level.
Earlier in July, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) accused a number of officials in the Ministry of Education including Farooq Wardak, former minister of establishing ghost’s schools and embezzling millions of dollars.
ENDS
