The closure of schools and continuing attacks on students in the southern Helmand province of Afghanistan forced Abdul Wakil’s parents to send him to a madrasa (Islamic school) in neighbouring Pakistan. Almost two months later, Abdul Wakil (not his real name) quit the school outside Quetta, capital of Pakistan’s Baluchistan province, and returned home.
“In the madrasa we were taught to sacrifice ourselves for jihad in Afghanistan and were told to do suicide attacks,” says 14-year-old Wakil who lives in Lashkargah, centre of Afghanistan’s insurgency-torn Helmand province. “I don’t want to become a suicide attacker, because it’s forbidden in Islam, so I secretly quit the madrasa and returned home.”
Abdul’s parents are happy to have their son home safe and sound, but are worried about his security. “If the Taliban find out about him, they will kill him,” says his father, who requested anonymity. “We are also concerned about his education and future,” he adds.
His concerns are not unique in the volatile south, where attacks by insurgent groups have closed more than 630 schools, depriving 300,000 students of education, according to the ministry of education (MoE). More than two decades of war has severely damaged education in Afghanistan, resulting in very low literacy rates: 12.6 percent among females and 43.1 percent among males, an average of 28.1 percent nationwide, according to aid agencies.
The insurgents’ anti-education activities — armed attacks, intimidation and negative propaganda — seek to shut down schools and deny students — girls and boys — formal education that mixes modern scientific subjects with Islamic studies. From January to October 2008, 256 school-related security incidents, with 30 deaths, were reported, against 213 incidents in the same period in 2007, according to the UN Children’s Fund (Unicef). As a result, going to school has become increasingly dangerous for students and teachers. However, the insurgents have tacitly encouraged parents to send their sons to religious schools in neighbouring Pakistan for Islamic studies.
Almost all Taliban leaders, including their reclusive leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, were trained in Pakistani madrasas. They not only offer immunity from Taliban attacks but also provide free board and lodging to students and are thus more attractive to poor families than modern schools. Tens of thousands of Afghans are enrolled in Pakistani madrasas, according to MoE officials. Of Afghanistan’s six million students, 35 percent are female, with more than 1.2 million school-age girls out of school.
The government has recently stepped up efforts to protect schools and school children from Taliban violence. Asif Nang, a spokesman for MoE, says the government is ready to negotiate with the opposition over schools and would be willing to accommodate their religious reservations. “If they want to call schools ‘madrasa’ we will accept that. If they want teachers addressed as mullah we have no problem with that. Whatever objections they (the Taliban) may have we are ready to talk to them,” says Nang who adds that currently the curriculum of government schools is entirely in accordance with Islamic values with girls required to comply with Islamic dress codes (including wearing the hijab) to school.
Owing to this conciliatory policy, the government has reopened 24 schools in Helmand, Ghazni and Kandahar provinces. “We aim to reopen all the schools which are closed because of insecurity,” says Farooq Wardak, the education minister, adding that hundreds of new schools would be built in 2009.
However, none of the 16 schools reopened in Helmand over the past three months admits girl students, a severe blow for already low female literacy rates.
(Excerpted and adapted from www.irinnews.org)