Defining and Bridging the GAPS:

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Defining and Bridging the GAPS THE CASE OF
AFGHANISTAN (From Education Reforms to
Sustainable Development)
Susan Wardak, Director General, Teacher
Education, Ministry Dr. Michael Hirth, German
Technical Cooperation-Afghanistan
Istanbul, Turkey
MINISTRY OF EDUCATION Islamic Republic of
Afghanistan
March 2009
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• Purpose of this Presentation

• Inspite of important achievements, numerous
  daunting challenges still prevent millions of
  Afghan children from reciving quality education
  particularly constraints caused by
• Insurgency attacks or threats and factors
  associated with refugee and returnee status.
• This paper provides a review of the
  accomplishments, attempts to highlight Gaps of
  serious consequences and makes recommendations
  for bridging the gaps.
• Gaps and challenges related to a transition from
  emergency to a state of sustainable
• Development are also highlighted.
• Gaps are analysed in four thematic areas of 
• - Legal framework for education,
• - Access to education,
• - Quality of education, and Sustainibility of
  reform and development activities
• The purpose of this presentation is NOT to
  provide a prescriptions but to invite discussions
  around this majorly neglected topic.

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• Legal and Policy Dimensions (Accomplishments)

Education is the right of all citizens of
Afghanistan, which shall be offered up to BA
level in the State educational institutes free of
charge by the State.
By 2020 all children in Afghanistan, boys and
girls alike, will be able to complete a full
course of primary education. Afghanistans MDG
for Education

• By 1389 (2010)
• Net enrolment rate for boys and girls in primary
• grades will be at least 75 and 60 respectively.
• Female teachers will be increased by 50.
• A new curriculum will be operational in secondary
  schools
• 70 of teachers will pass a national competency
  test
• National annual testing system for students will
  be in place
• Afghanistan Compact

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• Legal and Policy Dimensions (Accomplishments)

• Same is echoed in the Education Law of 1387
  (2008) where equal rights for all children to
  education in Afghanistan are guarranteed.

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• Legal and Policy Challenges

• While there is no policy that excludes any Afghan
  child from equal learning opportunities, the
  actual measures in place are not adequate to
  address the complex challenges associated with
  the emergency situation in Afghanistan.
• Approximately five million school-aged children
  have no access to school or lost access to school
  or forced by circumstances to quit education.
• No provisions and alternatives exist for children
  who lost access to school due to school closure
  by insurgent attacks and/ or threats.

On another important front, no clear legal and
policy arrangements exist to ensure meaningful
capacity development and institution-building
necessary for transition from the state of
emergency to a situation where reform and
development activities do not collaps but become
part of the system and sustain for a forseeble
future.
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• Access to Education (Accomplishments)

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• Challenge to Access (closed schools)

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• Challenge to Access (Refugee and Returnees)

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• Challenge to Access (Returnees and Internally
  Displaced)

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• Challenge to Access (Community, Gender and
  Facility Gaps)

• Efforts to protect schools through community
  mobilization evolved from hiring at least one
  security advisors for all district (2006-2008)
  and recruiting at least one religious leaders
  from each province
• Recently, recruitment of additional Social
  Mobilizers are being considered
• Still communitys potential for protecting
  schools, teachers and pupils have not been fully
  exploited.

Only around 35 of the children enrolled in
primary schools are girls.
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• Challenge to Access (Community, Gender and
  Facility Gaps)

Girls acess to education is restricted by
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• Quality of Education (Accomplishments)

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• Quality of Education (Challenges)

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• Quality of Education (disaster and psychosocial
  gaps)

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• Sustaining the Development Challenges of Capacity
  and Reforms-1)

• Afghanistan is suffering from inadequate response
  to protracted emergencies and insurgency attacks
• There is no adequate provisions for capacity
  enhancement and institutionalizing of the
  recovery and reform activities so they can
  sustain.
• Reform activities that are led by international
  and national consultants and other trainings, MoE
  capacity to take over reform initiatives is
  questionable

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• Sustaining the Development Challenges of Capacity
  and Reforms-2)

• Several reform initiatives either collapsed,
  slowed down or lost direction. Examples are
  follows

A) Supported by multiple donors (e.g., UNICEF,
USAID, UNESCO, and DANIDA), curriculum
development reform was launched in mid-2003 that
led to development of the National Curriculum
Framework, detailed quality syllabi and
reasonable textbooks for grades one, two and
(some textbooks) for grades four and five. Due
to discontinuation of technical support this
reform got slowed down and eventually collapsed
in 2005. Recovery attempts in 2006 and 2007
resulted in questionable quality of textbooks for
the remaining grades.
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• Sustaining the Development Challenges of Capacity
  and Reforms-3)

B) Supported by multiple donors (UNICEF, USAID,
DANIDA and German Government), a Teacher
Education Program (TEP) was launched in the
spring of 2004 that led to establishing of a
national In-service structure, development of
training packages and assessment tools collapsed
in 2005. NPITT-DT3 was launched in 2007 where an
in-service package was sub-contracted to NGOs for
implementation. Similar is the case of
Community-based Schools, which are currently run
by NGOs. Despite an MoE policy urging
integration of these services to public school
system, progress on such integration is not
apparent.
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• Sustaining the Development (Challenges of
  Structural Reform)

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• The Transition Gap (Institution Development and
  Sustainability)

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• Recommendations (How to Bridge the Gaps-1)

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• Recommendations (How to Bridge the Gaps-2)

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• How to approach for all in Afghanistan

• How to increase access and improve quality
  currently?
• How to prioritize when everything is priority?
• How to start from scratch and at the same time
  cutch up with the rest of the world?

Thanks for Your Kind Attention