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In
the Afghanistan of the mid-seventies, over one million students
were enrolled in secular schools that employed more than 53,000
teachers. After 23 years of war and repressive government
policies, the education system in Afghanistan requires significant
investment. An entire generation has had little or no schooling.
Only 47% of adult males over the age of 15 are literate; that
figure sinks to 15% for adult women. 90% of Afghanistan's
teachers have been forced to seek other jobs or to leave the
labor force entirely. The few educational materials available
are of poor quality and outdated. During the Soviet war, the
curriculum was geared towards the war effort; later, the strict
Taliban regime limited education to memorization of the Holy
Koran for boys and banned girls from school altogether. The
demand for education in Afghanistan is great and must be met
quickly.
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The
children of Afghanistan are the ones who will bear the responsibility
to continue the reconstruction of their war torn nation. We
bear the responsibility of educating them so that they are
prepared to reconstruct their society. US-ARC aims to accomplish
this by:
- Improving
the overall quality of education.
- Expanding
the existing education structure by improving the secondary
and tertiary levels and by introducing kindergarten, vocational
training (school to work programs), and adult literacy programs.
- Working
to develop a common delivery mechanism with the input of
the stakeholders.
- Developing
learning and teaching materials and professional development
/teacher training in order to increase access, improve quality
and support capacity building. In cooperation with participating
stakeholders, qualified teachers will receive training and
adequate salaries, and culturally appropriate resource materials
will be developed.
Libraries
lost when the Taliban destroyed thousands of non-religious
books will be rebuilt. Boys and girls must have full and equal
access to the education system and attention must be given
to the special needs of both - girls who may never have attended
school and boys who may be ex-combatants.
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US-ARC
intends to work in collaboration with the Ministry of Education
to develop a sound curriculum, set realistic standards that
have the potential to be achieved, and design textbooks and
other materials that are culturally sensitive.
- US-ARC
will work towards creating community education systems with
continual input from stakeholders, quality, and equal assess
for both boys and girls.
- A
monitoring and evaluation mechanism will guide the projects
and provide feedback for improvement.
What
the students are taught should give them a foundation that
enables them to make sense of their world and participate
in it to their maximum capacity. Education helps to create
interpersonal, inter-tribal and inter-ethnic understanding
- these are the tools and ideas that Afghanistan needs to
rebuild a society that has been lacking intellectualism for
23 years.
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Projects 