page_title: Education in Afghanistan
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Education in Afghanistan / History
caption_attribution_description: Female school students of Afghanistan in 2002.
context_page_description: Education in Afghanistan includes K–12 and higher education, which is greatly supervised by the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Higher Education in Kabul, Afghanistan. Afghanistan is going through a nationwide rebuilding process and, despite setbacks, institutions are established across the country. By 2013 there were 10.5 million students attending schools in Afghanistan, a country with a population of around 35.5 million people.
context_section_description: One of the oldest schools in Afghanistan is the Habibia High School in Kabul, which was built by King Habibullah Khan in 1903 to educate students from the nation's elite class. In the 1920s, the German-funded Amani High School opened in Kabul, and about a decade later two French lycées (secondary schools) began, the AEFE and the Lycée Esteqlal. The Kabul University was established in 1932.
  Education was improved under the rule of King Zahir Shah between 1933 and 1973, making primary schools available to about half the population who were younger than 12 years of age and expanding the secondary school system and Kabul University.
  During the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, the government of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) reformed the education system; education was stressed for both sexes, and widespread literacy programmes were set up. By 1978, women made up 40 percent of the doctors and 60 percent of the teachers at Kabul University; 440,000 female students were enrolled in educational institutions and 80,000 more in literacy programs. Despite improvements, a large percentage of the population remained illiterate. Beginning with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, successive wars virtually destroyed the nation's education system. Most teachers fled during the wars to neighboring countries. In the middle of the 1990s, about 650 schools were destroyed or used as bunkers.
  In 1996 the Taliban regime restricted education for females, and the madrassa (mosque school) became the main source of primary and secondary education. About 1.2 million students were enrolled in schools during the period of Taliban rule, with fewer than 50,000 of them girls.
  After the overthrow of the Taliban in late 2001, the Karzai administration received substantial international aid to restore the education system. Around 7,000 schools were operating in 20 of the 32 provinces by the end of 2003, with 27,000 teachers teaching 4.2 million children (including 1.2 million girls). Of that number, about 3.9 million were in primary schools. An estimated 57 percent of men and 86 percent of women were reported to be illiterate, and the lack of skilled and educated workers was a major economic disadvantage. When Kabul University reopened in 2002, some 24,000 male and female students enrolled for higher education. In the meantime, five other universities were being rehabilitated. Public school curricula have included religious subjects but detailed instruction is left to religious teachers.
  By 2006, over 4 million male and female students were enrolled in schools throughout Afghanistan. At the same time school facilities or institutions were also being refurbished or improved, with more modern-style schools being built each year. The American University of Afghanistan (AUAF) in Kabul was established in 2006. Other universities were renovated or rebuilt, such as Kandahar University in the south, Nangarhar University and Khost University in the east, Herat University in the west and Balkh University in the north. Despite these achievements, there were still significant obstacles to education in Afghanistan, many of which stem from a lack of funding. Planning curricula and school programs is difficult for the Ministry of Education because a significant amount of the budget for education comes from external donors, making it difficult to predict the annual budget.
  The obstacles to education were even more numerous for Afghan girls. Afghanistan's then Education Minister, Mohammad Hanif Atmar, said in 2007 that 60% of students were studying in tents or other unprotected structures, and some parents refused to let their daughters attend schools in such conditions. A lack of women teachers was another issue that concerned some parents, especially in more conservative areas. Some parents were not allowing their daughters to be taught by men. But this often meant that girls were not allowed to attend school, as the international aid agency Oxfam reported in 2007 that about one quarter of Afghan teachers were women. In 2009, another concer
caption: Afghan female students in 2002
exif: {}