The Importance Of Education In Afganistan

The Importance of Education in Afghanistan’s Reconstruction

ABSTRACT:

Afghanistan is now at a critical point in its history; it needs to build a strategic path

from emergency to long-term reconstruction and development. Education helps to form the

very foundations of peace, nation building, poverty reduction, and economic growth. But

since 2006, the armed insurgency in Afghanistanhas begun to target schools across

Afghanistan, and as of this year 670 schools in southern Afghanistan have been closed

indefinitely. The central aim of this paper is to explore how grassroots approaches can be

mobilized in Afghanistan to achieve education goals. Along the way, it explores how control

of the educational system has historically been a mobilizing force for theconservative

Islamist movement, the communists, the overthrow of the Soviet government, and the

subsequent rise to power of the Taliban. If the new Afghan state is to have a chance at

surviving, the people must be permitted to take the education system into their own hands.

The Importance of Education in Afghanistan’s Reconstruction P a g e

INTRODUCTION:

STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE OF EDUCATIONIN AFGHANISTAN

In the past half-century alone, Afghanistan has seen the collapse of its monarchy,

the installation of a Soviet secular state, a successful Mujahideen insurgency to overthrow

the Communist government, debilitating factionalization of Mujahideen clans, the

precipitous rise and collapse of the Taliban government, and the installation of Hamid

Karzai’s fledglinggovernment in the wake of the post-9/11 US intervention. After five

tumultuous decades, Afghanistan’s human capital has been thoroughly and repeatedly

decimated.

Afghanistan is now at a critical point in its history; it needs to build a strategic path

from emergency to long-term reconstruction and development. Education helps to form the

very foundations of peace, nation building, thereduction of poverty, and economic growth.

Above all, education opens doors to new ways of thinking about Afghanistan, by Afghans,

and thus will be necessary to Afghanistan realizing its potential as a nation.

The starting point—in late 2001 at the fall of the Taliban—for recent developments in

Afghanistan was dire. Protracted conflict in the 1980s and 1990s, as well as drought and othernatural disasters, severely damaged the Afghan economy. Exacerbating the country’s

economic disaster, the conflict depleted and degraded factors of production: less manpower

available because of people who had joined the conflict or fled the country, and lower quality

of human capital due to lack of education and a “brain drain” as well-educated people left.

The education sector is amajor participant in both the economic and social

development of Afghanistan. Education plays a significant role in providing the productive

skills that are necessary for the implementation of development goals in agriculture, industry,

and health; training in the maintenance of natural resources and physical infrastructure

The Importance of Education in Afghanistan’s Reconstruction Pa g e

necessary for rural and urban development; knowledge and skills to cope with the demands of

development, such as written communication, banking, taxes, bureaucracy and operating

machinery; and training for self-reliance in meeting basic needs in health, nutrition, civic

participation and communication. This implies a holistic approach to education and

development, wherebyultimately all sections of the population can have access to an adequate

education to enable them to participate in the development process both as productive workers

and as effective citizens.

Quality education is among the most critical investments to be made in Afghanistan.

As a long-term investment in Afghanistan’s social and economic development, success in

education cannot be...