Donate NowShaun McCanna, for the Pulitzer Center
There is an ongoing debate as to what is the most pressing challenge facing education in Afghanistan. According to Asif Nang, the spokesman for Afghanistan's Ministry of Education, the greatest challenge on a national level is the need for qualified teachers. The Ministry's statistics show only twenty-three percent of teachers in Afghanistan have graduated past class 14, which is high school plus a two-year teaching degree. Seventy-five percent have only completed high school. But as Nang points to a lack of professional teachers, others in the south and west point to the lack of security.
Alhaj Najibullah Ahmadi, Provincial Education Director of Kandahar, says security is the gravest concern in his region. Sitting in his office on Tuesday he was adamant, qualified teachers need some place to teach, and with the current lack of security in Kandahar province, schools have become a prime target for the Taliban. Last year the Provincial Education Council oversaw the building of thirteen schools in the region. During the same time period the Taliban destroyed eighteen of the Council's schools. A trend repeated in other provinces. According to Asif Nang, 131 schools were destroyed nationwide last year, and this year's total already stands at 25, only three months into the school year.
In addition, there are currently 467 schools closed as the result of security concerns, with an estimated 300,000 students deprived of school access as a result. But these statistics don't even take in to account the numerous acts of intimidation. On the outskirts of Kandahar City, some thirty minutes from the city center, you will find Nasaji Nakhi High School. During this past semester, students came to school to find that one of the classrooms in their u-shaped complex had been completely burned. The Taliban had entered in the night, and rather than destroy the school as a whole, burned only one classroom. One classroom that serves to remind students and faculty on a daily basis that the Taliban is near.