Girls go back to school to teach the Taliban a lesson

Recruiting engineers: Squadron leader Rebecca McBain addresses the class
Robert Fox12 April 2012

The Girls' High School in Lashkar Gah is a showcase inner city academy for Afghanistan - with a truancy record that any London

"The place was a complete mess, vandalised, carpets torn up, doors broken," recalls Mrs Jamila Najarzi of when she became head teacher five years ago.

Before that the Taliban stopped children attending altogether. Now she is head of a staff of 180 teachers, of whom only eight are men, and 8,000 students.

Of these, 3,000 boys study up to Grade 6, - roughly between 12 and 13 - while the 5,000 girls, whose ages range between seven and 22, study to Grade 12 to prepare them for college education.

"I like Persian, art, maths and chemistry - of course English language," says Alia, 19, in clear English. "Go on, ask them questions," urges the form teacher, Pamanda Majouf, "they all speak English".

Taking up the challenge, Nasli, a serious 17-year-old, declares that her ambition is "to solve our country's problems - I would like to go to university." She explains she has always been encouraged to learn - she has a brother and sister in the school and her mother is one of the teachers.

She tells me that she realises that things are much tougher out in the rural villages. The girls look cool in their standard school uniform of black jacket and trousers, and white headscarf worn as a form of shalwar kameez.

They are open and welcoming - for the encounter with an English journalist is a first - and say I can take pictures, though the head teacher says it would be prudent, as well as courteous, to avoid photographing their faces.

Security is the major problem for education in Helmand, Jamila Najarzi states bluntly in front of colleagues from the government. "And 80 per cent of the security comes from the ISAF international forces. More steps need to be covered by our government if they are to fill the gap when the international forces leave."

In fact her two male colleagues from the Directorate of Education silently nod in agreement. "Things are getting better. In Sangin a year ago there were no schools, now three are working. In Now Zad, (in the deep north-west of Helmand) 75 girls are going to school, and they have one female teacher."

His department has set up 160 adult literacy courses, 32 in government offices, and 20 in mosques.

I ask about why there is such a surge in demand for learning to read and write, and does this mean the Taliban might take a more progressive view of education? "There are incentives. The Danes provide a gift of food and cooking oil for the poorest coming to our courses. Yes, attitudes are changing."

Helmand now has 100,000 children in school, from a population of 800,000, but progress is fragile. Teachers' salaries are low. Jalil Najarzi, a head teacher, earns 7,000 Afghanis, just below £100 a month.

Another major problem for Afghanistan's future is exposed by one of the British liaison party, Squadron Leader Rebecca McBain, an RAF engineer. "I am a girl like you," she tells the English class, "and I wonder why you want to be doctors and teachers, and not engineers and mechanics?"

Practical engineering courses are few and far between and at the local level in Helmand almost nobody is qualified to teach them. A new infrastructure, drains, roads and electricity grids, is being built for a new Afghanistan. But there are very few Afghans being trained to maintain it when the international forces and their advisers pull out - in only three years from now.

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