Free access of children to education

Education is one of the values that every country can get development and prosperity by, providing that people of all classes pay serious attention and because the development of the country takes place due to their education.

Ok dear friends! We want to present an interview from Killid Radio that me Mohammad Nasim Lalahand has with Mr. Najibullah Kamran the head of Education Department of Kabul province on free access of children to education through Campaign for Change of Life program.

In the beginning I have asked him what the law has stated about free education for children.

Answer: The constitution of Afghanistan states that every Afghan is obliged to educate and the government is committed to provide them ground of free education from first class to university, the constitution has named the educations from first class to ninth class as Basic Educations these educations are not only free rather they are compulsory as all Afghans have the right to get free educations in governmental schools and universities.

Question: Mr. Kamran! How many students are busy on education in frame of ministry of education?

Answer: The census that we have though is not exact shows that 8.6 million children are studying in governmental schools, and there are 4 million children that don’t have the access to education, the ministry of education has started a process called National Hashar/ National Assembling (a task performed by a group of volunteers for relief of the community) based which 25% of children who don’t have access to education would be annually brought under education system.

Question: The people are concerned that educations are not standard in governmental schools and say the ministry gives importance to quantity not to quality of the education or they say that there is not proper management and order in the ministry and corruption exists in the ministry so all these caused increment of private schools, so what is your view about concerns of people?

Answer: I am not agreeable with people’s views as we have good achievements in the ministry even other countries are happy about development in the education and say that Afghanistan’s education properly improved within past ten years we will try to get more success as well, the corruption doesn’t exist in ministry of education, we counter against corruption as when someone perpetrate the corruption it would be punished and would be handed over to law, on the other hand we have started the work from zero after fall of Taliban regime, to give rights of education to people we had to absorb many  children to schools in the beginning so it is true that we were heeding to quantity not to quality but now we consider both the quantity and quality , we also want to standardize the education but we don’t have access to required possibilities the people have the right to request us the quality educations, we accept in some measure the concerns of people though we don’t have standard students for standard educations so the graduated students from Teacher training Centers and Universities participate in educational programs of ministry of education after they pass the exams so we cannot employ the expatriate teachers to teach our children, these all are the problems that created obstacles in front of standard educations in the schools namely this problem is related to Higher Educations Centers who don’t have standard teachers so when they don’t have standard teacher how they would be able to train standard teachers for our schools if this problem solves the education as well as the teacher would be standard in the schools.

Question: As you know the international community drew it attention to ministry of education and helped it a lot after fall of Taliban, the government also spent its big budget on ministry of education but you still complain about lack of possibilities?

Answer: In response to your I should say that I have gone to many places in the world to see the schools and research about schools, there are three different types of schools for primary, middle and High schools, even the toilets are different in the mentioned schools, the maximum number of students is only 1000 students in each school but the case is different in Afghanistan as all the schools are similar and more than 5000 students are studying per school in three times, considering these problems we have been able to provide the available possibilities by aids that we have received we will try to increase more facilities .

Question: What is the role of private schools beside the governmental schools?

Answer: The people with financial possibilities send their children in private schools instead to governmental schools which evacuates the place for poor students in governmental schools, the privates gets 2000 Afs per month from each student while the government has allocated 500Afs per year for each student so you must accept that the education should be standard in the schools where an amount of 2000Afs is charged per student as well as good expenses also should occur on the student.

Question: Are there areas without governmental schools but the private schools exist in and do you have coordination with the mentioned private schools regarding the students that relates to poor families who live in the mentioned areas but don’t have access to education?

Answer: The coordination with private schools needs legal and economic support,  means we should pay fee to the mentioned schools but what we have done for these children is the establishment of schools called CBR funded by donor countries ,these are the schools that are active in rural areas in mosques and houses through support of people we employ the teachers for them that they don’t remain behind the education, the countries that have stood soon on their own foot in fact is due to the support of people for example when Japan got its independence the government told to  people that the government would support you in all fields but not in field of education as you should help the government in education so the Japanese people was giving a part of the incomes gotten from rice products to the government but now we see that the development of Japan in all sectors so this was the result people’s help so if the people help us according to their ability this will be a step for the development of us the education of their children.

Question: How do you give the sure to Afghan people that there would be standard education for their children in the schools that they would not have to send their children to private schools?

Answer: On behave of ministry education I would like to give sure to all my countrymen that we  are at service of our people, we are responsible to deliver quality educations for their children as our motto was the same in last year, we have paid attention to the National Assembling of Education this year, we would bring quality education to the schools that the people would not have to send their children to private schools, I would like ask the people to help ministry of education even one pencil or notebook which  will strengthen our intention.