EDUCATION

Illiteracy rates are high between both sexes in Ghazni. But women have the additional burden of a culture, which discourages education for females. It is too difficult to convince men to let their female family members attend literacy courses. The task is huge, while there is almost no funding or technical support.

In the past two years, people are becoming a bit more open to women's education compared to the first days of Taliban collapse, but traditional values in this region are still impacting on the education of girls. Late last year, a group of unidentified men burned down a girls' school in Ghazni City. This was followed by the distribution of leaflets in some districts of the province threatening families who sent their daughters to school.

However, Ghazni authorities are saying that school attendance by girls was generally increasing. Girls are starting school but qualified female teachers aren't there to teach them. The number of female teachers is critical to ensure girl's attendance. Getting children into school is a problem. Drop out rates are also very high and particularly so for girls. While some girl's are enrolling in grades 1 and 2, the real challenge is keeping them there.

Donors urge the Afghan government and international policy-makers to address the constraints that prevent girls from attending or continuing their education. This includes lack of female teachers, distances to school and the need for older girls to be educated separately from boys.

There are now 56,000 female students out of 200,000 students in the whole province. There are a total of 326 schools in the province, only 92 are accommodated in buildings with classrooms, the rest having to operate in the open or under trees. One of the leading organization involved in education In Ghazni province is Norweigen for Afghanistan Committee (NAC). NAC has been supporting 26 schools and is the only organisation that supports both primary and secondary education in these areas, an essential requirement for the development of the country. In the their  Ghazni programme female student enrolment has increased by 58% during the year. CARE's Community Organisation for Primary Education (COPE) project supports quality education up to Grade 6 in seven Ghazni and six other provinces of Afghanistan. The project helped to set up a number of  community managed schools with 44 percent of  girl students. Since 2001, Afghanistan has seen the highest enrollment rates in its history with more than 4.3 million children attending primary and secondary school in 2003. Still, more than half of Afghanistan's children don't attend primary school and only 9% make it to secondary school.

The success story of education in Afghanistan is too often sold in terms of numbers of schools built and numbers of children in school, but it's not just about the numbers. Huge challenges exist with the quality of education delivered.

GHAZNI PROVINCE EDUCATION STATISTICS

NGOs involved in Primary, Secondary and Teacher Training Activites in Ghazni Province