Internet news about Afghanistan is pretty well swamped with discussion of the U.S. airstrike on the Médecins Sans Frontières hospital in Kunduz. This is an accumulation of some older stories about Afghan schools.
Antonio Giustozzi and Ali Mohammad Ali, for the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, have a survey and report on political activity in Afghan high schools.
Political activity is banned in the high schools. And political activity is widely present.
Debate and verbal argument are the most reported political activities, with about half of interviewees reporting recruitment efforts. The authors also say there is a significant amount of underground activity going on, which is difficult to detect.
What might be the topics of political debate in an Afghan high school, I find interesting. In descending order nationwide, in this survey: the 2014 elections, foreign presence, political corruption, Islam versus Westernization, language issues such as Pashto versus Dari, and women's rights.
The type of political groups reported, in descending order: Islamic groups, the jihadi groups from the civil wars, ethno-nationalist groups, Maoist and leftist groups, and liberal and democratic groups.
Islamic groups include descending: Hizb-i Islami (seen as an Islamic group not a jihadi civil war one), the Taliban, Jamiat-e Islah, Hizb-ut Tahrir, and Jundullah.
Ethno-nationalist groups are most present in the northeast, also with the Pashtun nationalist Afghan Millat in the south.
Maoist groups and leftist groups derived from Khalq and Parcham are most present in the cities. Liberal and democratic groups as well.
Jihadi groups descending: Hezb-i Islami, Jamiat, Junbush, and Wahdat and Harakat-i Islami. (The authors say that from interviews, the political views of Jamiat and the legal Hezb-i wing activists are quite similar.)
Helmand province had a high reporting of debate about women's rights, and also the presence of women’s rights organizations.
Religious teachers are reported to do the most political proselytising, above teachers of science, language, or history.
Party activists show the most reported influence, over mullahs and parents.
In the conclusion, they find:
the spread of an anti-system sentiment, which essentially benefits radical and/or illegal Islamic organisations, some of which are actively engaged in an insurgency against the Afghan government, while others are not militarily active. The extent of the activities conducted by the Taliban, Jundullah, Hizb-i Islami (Hekmatyar branch), Hizb-ut Tahrir, and others should be a cause of concern for the Afghan authorities.... The other main trend shows that the mainstream Afghan political parties are trying to spread their wings wide among the population, actively trying to recruit high school students.
The Politicisation of Afghanistan’s High Schools, Antonio Giustozzi and Ali Mohammad Ali, Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit
Teachers had gone on strike in June.
Teachers in the Afghan capital are on strike in support of demands for higher pay and improved conditions, a representative said Sunday.
Fazel Ahmad Fazel, the head of Afghanistan's Teachers' Council, said some schools in Kabul have been closed for a week and that teachers have held rallies and sit-ins.
"All our demands are legitimate and we will not attend classes until we get our rights," he said. "We are very sad because of our students, but this government has left us no other choice."
The strike began in at least 15 schools, but has since spread to many more in the capital. The council is active across the country and has offices in 23 of Afghanistan's 34 provinces.
Teachers in Afghanistan are poorly paid and often do not receive their salaries for months on end because of government cash-flow problems.
Afghan teachers strike, schools close over pay demands, AP
Afghanistan Analysts Network looked closely at the issue.
The progress in the education sector has been reported widely as one of the success stories of the national international efforts in Afghanistan since 2002. However, this narrative omits severe problems – one is that the teachers who are supposed to facilitate the rapid growth of the sector are still often ill-trained, ill-equipped, badly paid, too few in numbers – and, increasingly unhappy about it. Recently, they stood up for their key demands, paralysing schooling in several provinces with a month of demonstrations. AAN’s Qayoom Suroush and Christine Roehrs have looked at the problems they face and their impact on the quality of schooling in Afghanistan. They found that the demand for education has grown faster than the rate teachers can be hired and that the pressure on the government to pay for more teachers shrinks the budget for many other necessary education expenditures. They also noticed a significant change in the perception of this important profession that once was respected highly in Afghan society.
Too Few, Badly Paid And Unmotivated: The teacher crisis and the quality of education in Afghanistan, Qayoom Suroush and Christine Roehrs, Afghanistan Analysts Network
Paiwandgah collected some views about school conditions. Problems cited include insecurity, unqualified teachers, lack of a school building, and corruption and the influence of powerful men.
Afghanistan Analysts network looked at the university exam process.
The reach of strongmen extends to university exams.
But even if a student managed to answer a sufficient portion of the 160 questions well enough to ensure his or her slot in a university, the concern remains whether he or she will study. Seats may still be allocated to protégées of local powerbrokers who, before or after the kankur, interfere in its outcome in order to push their own candidates. The patience with this practice is decreasing within the MoHE, with officials bitterly lamenting about provincial leaders storming their offices every year around kankur time. But consequences all too often affect all students and not only those who would have benefitted from unfair attempts to influence the allocation of university places. In this year’s kankur in Wardak, the MoHE’s exam committee for example cancelled 280 students’ results. The MoHE claimed that this was to neutralize the intervention of local strongmen who allegedly had stayed in the exam hall, helping some of the 280 to cheat. When members of the ministry delegation wanted to stop them, they were beaten (see MoHE statement here).
Battleground Kankur: Afghan students’ difficult way into higher education, Obaid Ali, Afghanistan Analysts Network
Gary Owen, last year, caught an ISAF photo from a set titled "Life is good in Bamyan Province.”
BAMYAN PROVINCE, Afghanistan – A group of school girls turn their heads away from a gust of wind and sand during their class at the Bamyan Regional High School. Teachers are forced to conduct classes outside for lack of electricity and lighting inside the building. Bamyan province has over 120,000 children enrolled in school, nearly half of which are girls. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Ken Scar, 7th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment)
School is being conducted outside the school, for lack of lighting and electricity inside.
Looks to me like a handicapped accessibility ramp, though.