Afghanistan: education for girls

Off Our Backs, Nov/Dec 2003 by Osborn, Corie, Dalton, Melissa, Ruby, Jennie, Young, Angie

Asia

In September two schools for girls in Afghanistan just south of Kabul were burned. In one incident, a note was left behind saying that girls should not be educated. The incidents left some parents keeping their girls home from school awaiting better security to protect the classrooms. Other parents simply became more determined to have their daughters in school: Maymoud Ayub Saber, the principal of one of the schools, told the Washington Post: "If some girls were occasionally absent before this happened, their parents are saying from now on none of their daughters will miss a single day."

Education for girls in Afghanistan has been improving since the ouster of the Taliban, according to Sharad Sapra, director of UNICEF in Afghanistan. UNICEF is working to reestablish the education system in Afghanistan, with over 4.2 million children in 7,000 schools now operating in that country. Sapra told the Washington Post that there has been a 37% increase in the number of girls attending school since last year, or about 400,000 more girls attending school.

Despite the improvement in elementary education, most schools for girls go only through sixth grade. There are very few secondary schools that girls can attend. The persistent conservatism of Afghan society limits the schools available to girls, with parents unwilling to let adolescent girls either attend school with boys or travel far from home to an all girl school. With the fear of violent attacks on girls' schools added to the mix, education for girls in Afghanistan continues to be at risk.