The paper confined itself to reviewing the extent to which the assistance community at that time addressed key technical issues in the education sector and, given the general conditions of the Afghan context, attempted to identify which strategies might prove cost-effective in addressing a range of short and long term needs.
This document contains brief notes about the development community’s plans for long term assistance to Afghan education. These informal notes covered the situation of Afghan education, strategies to address problems, and the potential impact on Afghan education. The notes include information on the political context between 1978 and 1998, the education context, the personal context of working in Afghanistan, schools in Kabul, the assistance community, technical needs, strategies to improve access, strategies to improve program quality, and capacity strengthening in local NGOs. The notes ended with a brief description of activities after the strategy was accepted.
This discussion paper was written in preparation for the workshop on restarting support for Afghan education, It was organized by Save the Children (USA) and UNICEF in Islamabad in 1998 and attended by a number of local and international groups. The topics included basic data on Afghanistan, the Taliban, the Northern Alliance, international assistance, the politics and history of education, in Afghanistan, the then current status of education in Afghanistan in the 1990s, community involvement in delivering education, government involvement, trends in donor assistance, regional spread, and assistance to refugees. The document contains a number of graphs, tables, and statistics.
The consultancy which culminated in this report was supported by Save the Children (USA), UNICEF Afghanistan, and the Royal Netherlands Embassy. The report built on earlier initiatives, in particular the workshop on “Education for Afghans: Issues Confronting the Assistance Community,” which was organized in Islamabad in April 1998 by Save the Children and UNICEF Afghanistan. The report’s brief analysis of the status of Afghan education makes it clear that a substantial improvement in access to and the quality of education needed improvement, as well as an increased capacity to develop and maintain the Afghan education system. The paper suggests options to address these issues.
The purpose of this study was to draw a baseline showing the state of teaching and learning in the Save the Children (SC)/US Afghan Refugees Schools. The measures for assessing learning were drawn from the set of Basic Competencies of Learning (BCL) that were developed for the Afghan education initiative for primary level math and language arts. The baseline was established through classroom observation and student achievement tests. The study identified the strengths and weaknesses of the refugee education program and suggested ways that future practitioners could implement improvements.
This report describes the conditions for learning in the Home Based Girls’ School (HBGS) program supported by Save the Children for refugee children. It found that girls were learning to read and write with comprehension, and were capable of doing math problems. The study noted HBGS’s excellent learning environment, reflected on the monitoring and supervision systems of Field Officers, the direction of Program Managers, and praised the dedication of the teachers and students. General and specific recommendations were made to further improve the program.
This 4-page outline of the baseline study of the Save the Children schools in Balochistan Afghan Refugee Villages described above briefly lays out the objectives, scope, and methodology of the study. It describes in detail the characteristics of the tests, samples, and teacher questionnaire, as well as aspects that affected interpretation of results.
This document includes the PowerPoint presentation and notes used when describing the project to international development professionals in 2000. The talk discussed the state of Afghan education and potential strategies to address its problems. The presentation covered the consultancy of 1998 aimed at restarting international support for Afghan primary education, the purposes of the consultancy, the political, educational, and personal aspects of the consultancy, schooling in Kabul at the time, a summary of existing capacities among the assistance agencies – their technical needs and capabilities, and potential strategies to improve the access to and quality of primary education, and improve capacity to implement such a program.
This paper is a follow-on to meetings held in Peshawar during November 2001 when a group of Afghan educators supported by UNICEF gathered several times to discuss the future of Afghan education in the post-conflict period. The intent was to describe a variety of options and their implications for the Afghan education system. There were four education issues addressed: (1) increasing participation: access and retention, (2) developing a quality program, (3) building the institutional structures of a national system, and (4) building Afghan education on existing foundations and initiatives.
This strategy report stresses the need to improve the quality of education by emphasizing student learning as the end result of educational initiatives. It highlights the achievements from a series of workshops organized for Afghan educators by Save the Children/and other agencies under the sponsorship of UNICEF. The first workshop established a set of basic competencies in mathematics and language development for the primary level, while subsequent workshops produced instructional materials in mathematics to support the achievement of the basic competencies.
The purpose of this paper was to provide background for Afghan educators in the newly reformed Ministry of Education on how the problems ofaccess, quality, and capacityhave been addressed in other countries. It suggests practical steps to address Afghan issues based on this previous experience. A model is described for the development and delivery of a simple, transportable quality program for primary education, requiring minimal support, and based on a set of agreed-upon basic competencies for the primary grades. The steps described in this report include: (1) finalizing a program package, (2) incorporating the new materials into existing program, (3) establishing new program, (4) suggestions for continued capacity building, and (5) additional material and program development.
- Strategy for Afghan Primary Education – Summary of Progress from 1998-2000, and Suggested Next Steps
This summary paper documents progress in implementing the Strategy during the two years since its publication in 1998. The document highlights the significant progress made on the program for Afghan education, describes how the Strategy evolved, clarified rationales for its activities, and provided a model that could prove useful in similar contexts. The paper concludes that quality education can be achieved with a clear set of expectations, a continuous process of reflection and correction, and by a strengthened local capacity to maintain the process.
This assessment study resulted from a Framework for Action to Meet Basic Learning Needs adopted by the World Conference for Education for All (1990) which foresaw the need for an end-of-decade assessment of education progress. This study was part of the Education for All (EFA) 2000 assessment for Afghanistan, coordinated by UNESCO with funding support from UNDP. Previously no data on learning achievement existed in Afghanistan and thus the case study sought to provide data on learning achievement for the EFA 2000 country report. In addition it provided an opportunity to learn lessons to inform implementation of a larger scale assessment planned for 2000 onwards. Findings and conclusions of the pilot study were provided in detail in the document.
Primary Education Support 