Lessons Learned from the Education System

in Afghanistan, Future of Education and What

to Do Next
Sayed Sekandar Sadat

EDUCATION IN AFGHANISTAN

Oct 2021
1. Introduction
Education has been at the forefront of the political battles and conflicts that have plagued
Afghanistan over the past few decades. With the recent collapse of the Afghan government within
the hands of the Taliban, concerns have been raised over the future of education – girls in particular.
Protecting the gains of the last 20 years and fixing the conflict-affected education system seems
challenging than ever before.

In this note, I have gone through an overview of the great strides the education system in
Afghanistan has made over the years of the international community’s presence in Afghanistan,
weaknesses, and challenges I observed in specific areas of my engagement in the sector, major
barriers to schooling in the current political context, and my perspective on what could be the role
of the international community and private sector to support school education in the evolving
political dynamics in Afghanistan.

2. Overview of Education System in Afghanistan in the Last Two Decades

From 2001 to 2021 both the Government of Afghanistan and a range of international donors have
invested huge amounts of money and human resource capacity into rebuilding and strengthening
the education system in Afghanistan, from primary to tertiary levels, in recognition of the huge
importance played by education in the rebuilding and development of Afghanistan.

Looking at the trend of progress, education has made numerous achievements, particularly in
improving access to education and enrollment from 1 million (mostly boys) in 2002 to 9.7 (37% girls)
in 2020, increase in the number of teachers on annual basis from 21,500 in 2001 to around 220,000
in 2020, and establishment of more learning centers from 3,400 in 2001 to more than 17,000 in
2020.

A number of rare and country-specific experiences made the aforementioned progress possible.
From establishing community councils (“Shuras”) - that engaged community members and parents
in identifying and eliminating socio-cultural barriers towards access to education, attracting
community support in developing and running schools – especially for girls, and intervening between
Armed Opposition Groups and government to keep educational institutions away from political
conflicts; to establishing Community Based Education(CBE) which is an alternative pathway of
service for the hardest-to-reach; expanding Accelerated Learning Centers(ALC) for those who have
missed out on schooling due to war, poverty or cultural constraint; and expanding literacy classes, all
demonstrate great strides of made for preparing a literate and educated workforce for the future of
Afghanistan.

Afghanistan successfully developed and executed three National Education Strategic Plans that
unified efforts, harmonized resources, and aligned the international community’s support to
national education priorities. All along the way, the enabling policy environment opened the door
for alternate delivery pathways including private education. CBE Policy, Early Grade Reading Policy,
Distance Learning Regulation, Girls Education Policy, Private Schools Regulation, and a few more are
to name in this regard.

While the achievements of the education sector were remarkable, several shortcomings remained.
Improvement in enrollment was remarkable progress but substantial disparity among provinces
remained a grave concern; the attendance rate of the school-aged girls was even more alarming as a
result of security concerns, socio-cultural barriers, and distance to school; lack of school building and
infrastructure in nearly half of the schools; low learning outcomes as a result of inadequate learning

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environment with the teacher force largely remaining underqualified and lack of thoroughly
assessed and probed curriculum and standard learning assessment; and mismanagement of the
sector with centrally managed education policies and resources – leaving provincial actors with little
room to innovate or to adapt to the diverse range of local contexts.

Numerous policy and strategic failures account for the shortcomings. Mismanagement of
development and emergency funds, little support to private schools to fill the gaps, and
unresponsive approaches of teacher training are to be highlighted in this regard.

1.1 Management and Coordination of Development Projects and Education in Emergency

The education sector in Afghanistan has been one of the largest receivers of Official Development
Assistance (ODA) in the region in the last two decades. Mismanagement of ODA and non-functioning
coordination structures for development projects in the education sector and education emergency
response have been critical bottlenecks towards addressing the local contexts and needs. The below
issues existed in the harmonization of resources and coordination of programs:

1) Aid fragmentation was amplified by a lack of donor transparency and communication about
budgets, with formal coordination structures being used for policy coordination rather than
sharing information about off-budget support.
2) Concerns about the government transparency, capacity, and public financial management
resulted in a lack of donor appetite to contribute funds on budget and align them with
government priorities.
3) The National Education Strategic Plan was broad and not prioritized and sequenced for
short- and longer-term.
4) The NESP Steering Committee was functioning as an information-sharing forum rather than
a higher-level forum for strategic discussion. Further, it is perceived as not fulfilling its
function as a platform for discussion and advocacy for resource allocation and prioritization.
5) There was a critical link missing between the sector-level policy and programmatic
discussions, and the higher-level political discussions about mutual accountability and
sustainable development. There was a vital donor coordination link missing.
6) A key challenge was that donors were not required to provide data for off-budget
contributions and some of them did so voluntarily.
7) Mapping sector and sub-sector contributions to NESP geographically, including CBE and EiE
temporary classes had not been sufficiently coordinated among development partners.
8) There were different donor institutional requirements and funding cycles for budget
planning. Donors were struggling to provide information about funding in the pipeline which
made planning difficult for MoE.
9) Donor political agendas were an inevitable driving factor behind some resourcing decisions
and were linked to donor reluctance to participate in pooled funding.

For any potential intervention of donor community in the education sector in the future, lessons
learned from previous interventions should be considered and a coordinated effort both by the
government and development partners for the establishment of a Sector-Wide Approach (SWAp) in
education should be conducted.

1.2 Private Education

With the collapse of the Taliban regime in 2001 and the dawn of the new era, a few business
entrepreneurs started private schools in Kabul. Within a very short time, the number of private
schools skyrocketed in Kabul and provinces. In 2004 only 3 private schools were operating in Kabul.
The number has increased to more than 2,600 schools in the country now. More than 520,000 out of

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9.3 million students are enrolled in private schools (5.6% of total) which has resulted in a reduction
of around USD 41.6 million from the total expenditure of government on school education and
creating more than 30,000 job opportunities in the sector.

Recent research found that teaching quality is better, education is more relevant and overall the
learning outcomes are comparably good in these schools compared to their public counterparts,
while they pose better disciplinary as well. The research also highlights that the increasing number
of private schools has reduced the burden on government and has increased competition that in
turn has resulted in a higher quality of education. Although there were huge challenges for
entrepreneurs to establish private schools, especially with the corrupt and bureaucratic process of
receiving a license from the MoE, private schools flourished in the country due to many reasons.
Increasing interest in education among people, the large number of OOSC children in the country,
under-resourced public schools, perceived quality of private education among families, and
increasing affordability of private education to families were among the factors that account for this
progress.

With the tremendous potential for the development of affordable private schools in Afghanistan,
they remained attractive investments for entrepreneurs until the fall of Kabul to the hands of the
Taliban. Now with the economic downturn in the country, families find it difficult to pay fees for the
education of their children. Private schools direly need subsidies to continue operations. The public-
private partnership model illustrated later in this document is one means of supporting private
educational institutions in the current emergency context.

1.3 Teacher Training

Since 2002 MoE has recruited and trained thousands of new teachers each year and now manages a
quarter of a million teachers out of which 33% are female, in 17,500 schools. Despite a stark increase
in teacher trainees attending teacher training colleges, the teacher force in Afghanistan remains
generally underqualified. The MoE estimates that nearly half of the general education teachers do
not meet minimum qualification requirements. Hence, education quality outcomes remain
abysmally low partly because of the low capabilities of teachers.
Little to unqualified teachers resulted in a learning crisis in Afghanistan. According to a survey
conducted by World Bank in 2018, after spending 4 years in primary school, around 65% of Afghan
students have only fully mastered the Grade 1 language curriculum and less than half of them
mastered Grade 1 mathematics curriculum.
There was no effective mechanism for training and effective supervision inside the classroom
following the teacher training programs, and teacher training programs did not have specific and
measurable indicators to assess their effectiveness. There was also no nationwide standardized
testing of teacher abilities within the pool of MoE employed teachers.
Meanwhile, most teachers were not thought to participate in capacity-building programs for
learning but rather had a symbolic presence. This was mostly derived from the fact that there was
no defined incentive (step upgrade or increase in remuneration) upon successful evaluation of
teachers in a specific course.
Any intervention of the international community in the future to develop the capacities of Afghan
teachers must possess a radically different approach than those used in the past.

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2 Future of the Afghan Education System
The Afghan education system is faced with an obscured future. Along with the previous challenges,
the new constraints brought by the Taliban regime in the country would negatively impact the
education system – widening the gap in access to basic education. Likewise, proper management of
the sector, and maintaining the quality of schooling have entered a new era of barriers.

2.1 Challenges of Access to Education in the Era of Taliban

The Taliban effectively banned girls from secondary education in Afghanistan, by ordering high
schools to only reopen for boys. Long ago during their first round of ruling the country before 2001,
they had imposed similar restrictions on girls' education – decreasing the female literacy rate to the
lowest of all-time in the country. Now with the new restrictions, Afghanistan is the only country on
earth to bar half of its population from getting a secondary education. But even if the Taliban make
good on their pledge to let girls study, the militants' underlying philosophy has not changed, making
it unlikely that women will be able to pursue careers and engage in public life.

The separation of girls and boys schools is another major challenge for the education system.
Previously, co-education was practiced in primary schools, and for secondary education, a large
number of schools were providing schooling opportunities to boys and girls in two separate shifts.
The Taliban’s radical belief that girls and boys should study in separate schools has posed significant
pressure on the system to reach all as the existing infrastructure is not sufficient to respond.
Meanwhile, the existing teaching workforce is not sufficient to comply with the Taliban’s order that
prohibits male teachers from teaching girls and female teachers to teach boys. Already, the
attendance rate has shifted down as most of the schools that had employed female teachers are
short of the teaching workforce, mostly in urban areas.

Community-Based Education (CBE) wish was heavily dependent on donor funding and provided
educational opportunities to those out of reach, is no longer provided as the funding support is
immediately cut off upon Taliban regaining power. This has posed children in remote areas
vulnerable to illiteracy.

Last but not least, enrollment and attendance into the private schools that were educating more
than half a million children are significantly reduced as a result of the economic downturn in the
country. Schools are closing their doors as they are no longer capable of maintaining operations with
the current level of income. This will impact access to education in the future as well since most of
these provide schools that are closing up were operating in areas where there were no public
schools at all, or the existing public schools were oversubscribed.

2.2 Education Quality and Management

Owing Afghanistan’s unstable situation, it was governed by various parties, particularly in the early
nineties. In the period 1996-2001, during the first round of the Taliban regime, the curriculum largely
consisted of religious subjects with little emphasis on science and language. Only in 2001 was
priority again given to education. Afghanistan featured a 6+3+3 system in which primary education
lasts 6 years, from classes 1 through 6, and is intended for pupils aged 6 to 12. In the first 3 years of
primary education, the curriculum comprises subjects such as art, theology, the local languages,
mathematics, calligraphy, and physics. Other subjects, such as sciences, geography, and history, are
added to the curriculum at a later stage.

Soon after the introduction of the new education minister by the Taliban, the revision of the national
curriculum began to include more Islamic subjects. Public and private schools across the country are

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mandated to follow the national curriculum. However, private schools have some level of autonomy
to teach additional science and language subjects/materials.

The shortage of textbooks is another challenge. Textbooks are the most basic and necessary learning
material used in Afghan classrooms. In an environment like Afghanistan which suffers from
extremely limited access to computer and internet technology available for students, simple use and
exposure to textbooks can significantly improve the quality of learning in classrooms. Lack of and
late arrival of textbooks months after the opening of the academic year was a consistent problem in
the past few years. Last year, public schools lacked around 90 million textbooks across the country.
While printing and distrusting textbooks were mostly dependent on donor funding, the newly
established regime is financially incapable of printing and distributing textbooks at this scale. This
will significantly impact the quality of education and learning outcomes.

On the other hand, lack of familiarity with diverse teaching methods and academic weakness of
teachers in Afghanistan has long resulted in low learning outcomes among students. Although in the
post-Taliban government in 2001, key stakeholders and donors implemented teacher training within
an environment of diverse, changing, and largely unassessed training needs, creating a training
program that sufficiently bridges this educational gap seems more challenging in the current
context. Nearly all of the donor-funded teacher training programs have stopped and public teacher
training institutions are not resourced enough to build the capacity of a 200k+ largely unqualified
population of teachers.

Finally, the management of the education system is another challenge. In the last decade, MoE
heavily relied on donor-funded national technical assistants (NTA) to manage technical aspects of
education sector planning and management. With the suspension of the donor-funded NTAs, MoE is
faced with a shortage of qualified workforce to manage the sector. In the meantime, the Taliban’s
approach of centralization towards governance would definitely impact MoE’s performance at
provincial and district levels as it gives little room to provincial directors to innovate and adapt
educational management practices to the local contexts.

3 Opportunities and Recommendation

3.1 Public-Private Partnership in Education
Nowadays, nowhere in the world is the education service solely provided by the government. The
idea of privatization in education has been widely embraced by governments around the world and
providing per-student startup subsidies for private schools becoming more prevalent.

Private schools (most of which are considered affordable) have flourished in Afghanistan in the last
decade, and the number has skyrocketed (from 1 in 2004 to 2,700 in 2019). This shows that
tremendous potential exists in the private sector to take on the delivery of education services in
rural parts of the community if adequate support and incentives are provided by the government or
the international partners. These entities can also contribute in geographical areas where public
schools are closed and non-functional due to insecurity, conflict and lack of demand, and/or public
schools are under-resourced and oversubscribed.

Community-Based Education (CBE), which was introduced in 2003 in Afghanistan, had a significant
impact in reaching OOSC. However, with the Taliban takeover of the country and donor aid almost
stopped, donor-funded CBE classes will no longer be a viable option for the Ministry of Education

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and there is an acute need to make affordable private schools more accessible through PPP to
underserved and marginalized students and cover government’s shortcoming.

Considering the average spending per student of around 80$ / year in Afghanistan, the international
community could provide partial or full scholarships/vouchers to students to enroll them in
affordable private schools. This will also empower more private players to step in for support for
education.

Other PPP models could also be leveraged to support core- and non-core functions of education in
Afghanistan. Partnerships in printing and delivering textbooks, constructing school buildings, e-
learning, and partial delivery of school curriculum (i.e., computer classes) are feasible options that
could strengthen access to education, quality of schooling, and management of the education
system.

For the international community, seed-funding and supporting PPP startups is a way to bypass
interaction with the Taliban regime and directly engage with the private partners in the sector to
provide education in an emergency in the short term as well as development support in the longer
term.

3.2 Distance Learning for Schooling and Teacher Training

The rapid increase in population and low capability of the Ministry of Education in the parallel
expansion of its service has widened the access gap. Before the Taliban take over the country, there
were 3.7 million children are out-of-school (OOSC) in Afghanistan. With the recent wave of IDPs and
refugees resulted from political upheaval, this figure is expected to vastly increase unless alternate
delivery modalities are sought. Remote learning which was regulated through a recently-endorsed
regulation at the MoE is one such alternative of attendance-based schooling to reach marginalized
parts of the community.

On the other hand, as mentioned before, in addition to considerable access challenges, the
education system in Afghanistan is facing a learning crisis. Education quality outcomes remain
abysmally low partly because of the low capabilities of teachers. Many grade-6 graduates do not
know how to read and write. Preparing supportive/digital learning materials including interactive
audio and visual contents, especially for early grades, does not only help students to learn better
and prepare them for later grades but would also help teachers overcome pedagogic weakness.

The international community and private educational institutions in the country can play a key role
in expanding the opportunity of distance education. Although a large portion of the population
doesn’t have regular access to electricity and the internet, different delivery mediums should be
used in this regard. Delivering learning content through web-based applications, distributing self-
paced learning content physically (print material or multimedia CD/USB), and delivering lessons
through MoE TV/Radio are means of delivery.
Evaluation and accreditation of distance learning are also crucial. Currently, for those who have
missed regular schooling, have self-studied, and want to enter higher grades of school or receive a
graduation certificate, there is an eligibility/entry test being conducted on an annual basis in specific
schools. Leveraging this model for self-paced distance learning could encourage out-of-school
children and youth to learn while being confident that their learning will be recognized.
On the other hand, distance-learning technology can be used in other areas of the education sector.
One possible mean to ensure teachers are continually provided with capacity building opportunity is
distance learning and teacher training LMS. Leveraging technology advantages for teachers’

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preservice and in-service training at elementary and secondary education levels contributes to the
improvement of learning outcomes and quality of schooling. Also, given the technical and financial
capacity of the private sector in the field, this provides a unique investment opportunity for the
private sector through a public-private partnership(PPP) mechanism.
1) Establishment of a computer-based Qualification Assessment System to evaluate a large
number of teachers annually and enrol them in distance learning courses.
2) Providing distance learning courses for teacher capacity development to upgrade their
qualification, developing Teacher Education Learning Management System (TED-LMS) to
provide course-based studies to teachers, or making available offline self-paced learning
options (print material, multimedia CD/USB, etc). Non-degree courses on content
knowledge, pedagogy, and instructional approaches can be delivered through distance
learning.
3) Post-training computer-based evaluation and observation of practice make it possible to
align teacher accreditation and certification with what schools look for and catalyse their
professional development.
4) The promotion of accredited teachers acts as an incentive for teachers to pay for courses
and upgrade their qualifications. On the other hand, this reduces the symbolic presence of
teachers in teacher training programs and motivates them to actually learn. Teachers submit
course certificates for a pre-defined set of qualifications to get a promotion in their
step/grade.

Donor funding for teacher training and other areas of the education sector has stopped. Leveraging
technology advancements and the private sector’s technical and financial capacity to improve access
to quality education is one crucial policy option that could be executed by the new government and
international partners.

4 Conclusion
The education system in Afghanistan has entered a new era of challenges. Restrictions on girls’
access to education, segregation of boys and girls schools, lack of resources and infrastructure to
respond to the radical beliefs of the Taliban, rapid brain-drain and escape of qualified teaching and
administrative staff from the country, suspension of foreign aid flow to the education sector, and
weak financial capability of the Taliban government to provide education for everyone, are all the
hurdles threatening the future of a country which already has one of the lowest literacy rates in the
world.

More than ever before, the role of the international community and Afghanistan’s development
partners is vital. Providing emergency support to education, empowering local NGOs and private
players to step in for service, advocating for girls’ education and human rights, and responding to
the particular needs of the children based on the lessons learned from previous interventions in the
education sector in Afghanistan would all contribute to preparing a qualified workforce for the
future of Afghanistan.

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