The Demand for Building Girls' School

 Written by: Samira Haleemzai

According to the information provided by the Ministry of Education of Afghanistan, about 18000 schools are built among them 3500 schools are for girls but in some remote areas of this country, there is even not a single school for girls.

AEOP’s writer/producer has talked to some people about this issue.

A girl says, “I was a fourth-grade student in one of our neighboring countries. When I came back to Afghanistan, as there is no school for girls in our village, I could not complete my education.”

Frishta Ahmadzai says, “I had studied tenth-grade in a school where we had been living and when my family shifted to another village and there is no girls’ school in this village and I could not complete my education. Now I am very depressed and I am always thinking about my future.”

How do people solve this issue?

Jan Agha Rahmanyar, the chairman of the local council, Kochken village, Shakardara district, Kabul province talks about the solution to this issue, “We did not have girls’ school in our village and girls were eager to study. At the beginning, we rent a house for this purpose but as the number of schoolgirls was increasing, we prepared an application to the Ministry of Urban Development in a gathering of the village’s elders to financially help us in building a girls’ school. They accepted our application. We wanted a landowner to sell a piece of his land for the girls’ school but the landowner donated his land for this purpose and then we shared the issue with the Ministry of Education and they prepared with the equipment for the school. Now about 9500 girls are studying in this school.”

Nooria Nahzat, a spokesperson of the Ministry of Education of Afghanistan says, “According to the regulation of Ministry of Education of Afghanistan when about 500 families are living in a village, the residents of the village could apply for a school. If the distance between primary schools is 3 kilometers; the distance between middle schools is 5 kilometers and the distance between high schools is about 8 kilometers, the residents of the village could apply for a school and they should proceed through the local council.”