capacity Building Courses for Female Teachers in Afghanistan

Written by: Mir Aqa Etebar

According to the information provided by Nooria Nuhzat, the spokesperson of the ministry of education of Afghanistan, about 230 thousand teachers teach millions of students. Among this number, 55 thousand teachers are unprofessional and they have a low educational level and the mentioned ministry is not capable to provide professional education for all teachers. Even in Kabul, some teachers do not have a good capacity for teaching and this issue has negative impacts on the students’ education.

AEPO’s writer/producer has talked to some teachers and a pedagogist about this issue.

Tooba, a teacher in one of Paghman, district, Kabul province, girls’ schools says: “In the first year of my job as a teacher, I had lots of problems. The students were playing in the classroom and I could not control them. I had some problems in teaching method too.”

Another teacher, Zarmeena says: “I knew all the lessons, but I was not able to transfer them to the students in a way that they could learn and that was annoying me.”

If the professional capacity of teachers is low, what kind of problems would the teachers face during teaching?

A pedagogist, Professor Imadudin says: “If a teacher is not capable to teach professionally, the students would be disappointed; they might hate teachers and learning in the school, and might leave the school. the families of these students would also be disappointed and such teachers might lose their selves confidence.”

How could these teachers raise their professional capacity?

Alhaj Muhammad Malang Ataee, the director of the educational department of Dehsabz district, Kabul province says: “the ministry of education holds seminars and workshops yearly and asks us to introduce them the teachers who have problems in teaching or are not professional. We send different delegations to schools and they find such teachers and then we introduce them for the workshop or seminar.”

How are the seminars or workshops conducting?

Nooria Nuhzat says: “Seminars and workshops are organized by the Ministry of Education in accordance with the requirements of the Ministry of Education each year. Every year, some members of the Education Supervision Department evaluate the teachers in different schools and submit their reports to the Kabul Department of Education and the Ministry of Education. The teachers who have problems in teaching, are introduced by the schools to participate the seminars and related workshops. During last year, 11299 teachers got the capacity building certificates from the Ministry of Education by sharing the seminars and workshops in Kabul city.”

What are the benefits of these seminars and workshops for the teachers and students?

Nafisa, a Teacher says: “We did not have a group discussion in the past, and students could not learn well. The school administration introduced me to one of the seminars and there I learned how to teach students in the class and now the students could easily learn the lessons and I feel very comfortable.”