KABUL (SW) – On a fine morning, a number of female students who have been denied formal education had gathered in a community classroom to catch up on lessons with all their enthusiasm to learn something new.
These students, who were sitting on the ground in a four-walled mud room, said that by learning, they want to follow the path of light to benefit both themselves and their country in the days ahead of their lives. These students, who had tasted the bitter taste of war and poverty, dubbed the establishment of these community classrooms as a ray of hope in Jawzjan.
One of the students in these local classes wearing full hijab, said that after the end of the war, she hoped to get educated so she can gather the orphan children and provide them with education. “We study in Joy Ghafoor village. First, the class was properly not arranged, it was at a long distance, we could not go to other schools. We would like to thank the Office of Acted, UNICEF, and Ma’arif for providing us with many booklets and everything here.”
In this class, Mozit and her other classmates learn five subjects every day, including math, Dari, Uzbeki and customs. “At first I couldn’t write and I didn’t know the words. Now I can study, I can write and I know the words,” she said.
Dressed in black, the blue- eyed girl had an innocent smile, Adiba said that the creation of local classes in the village where she lives promises a new life for girl students left out of education. “They created these classes for us. We are very happy. At first, we didn’t understand anything, we didn’t learn any lessons, we were like blind. Now, thank God, the school is suitable for us, we can study and learn.”
Adiba hopes that her other friends will be able to enter educational institutions and avoid being illiterate.
Mohammad Tahir Javad, the head of education in Jawzjan, said that now, nine thousand male and female students are studying in 300 local classes in this province. “Since we did not have schools in most of the remote areas in the past, in order to be able to provide balanced education in each area, these classes have been established in mountainous areas where there were no schools before.”
Endless wars in the past few decades and the neglect of the government to the importance of education have caused hundreds of thousands of boys and girls in remote parts of Afghanistan to be denied access to education.
ENDS
