AT News
KABUL: Students in central Daikundi province are scrambling with lack of school buildings and are forced to study in mosques, under shadows of trees or somewhere under the hot waves of sun.
18 years old, Fareshta is at grad 12th of Guzbri High School in Khadir district of the province. She is studying under a hot sun on a dusty field.
“We don’t have building. Sometimes we study under the trees or sometimes under the hot sun,” she said. “We are facing a lot of challenges, even don’t have a blackboard.”
They also face shortage of professional teachers and books.
Mohammad Riza is studying at Jamloq High School in Shahristan district. “It is very difficult to study under the sun,” he added. “We don’t know what to do because we don’t have access to facilities as other students have.” Riza said that he is fighting all these challenges to make a brighter future for himself.
According to the ministry of education, there are around 560 schools but almost 50 percent of them don’t have buildings. The numbers of students, who are studying under a tent, rent house, mosques and open area, estimated around 160,000 with girls consisting 50 percent.
A provincial civil rights activist, Anwar Shahab blamed the government for being negligence of paying attention to the situation of education system in the province.
Provincial educational department cited lack of professional teachers as main obstacles besides several other challenges in the education system.
“Our biggest problem is lack of teachers. This problem has been existed since past several years,” said, Rahmatullah Sirat, head of provincial educational department. “In many of the schools, the people or even the students act as teachers.” According to him, the educational ministry is planning to build 18 buildings for schools in Daikundi.
A spokesman for the ministry of education, Najiba Aryan said that would build 1,400 school buildings across the country in the ongoing year. “There are major projects for constructing and reconstructing,” she said.