Attachments
Since the Taliban takeover in August 2021, girls’ education has experienced one of its most critical setbacks, depriving 1.5 million Afghan girls of their basic right to education and learning. This Case Study highlights measures taken by the Education Cluster in Afghanistan to ensure continuity of education for girls in the face of overwhelming challenges.
What is the background?
Girls’ education has historically faced numerous challenges in Afghanistan, with deep-rooted social, cultural and religious norms and beliefs and poverty playing a contributing role to girls’ restricted access to education. In 1999, only 9,000 girls were enrolled in primary school1 in the entire country, and not one girl was enrolled at the secondary level. Significant gains in girls’ education were realised between 1999 and 2020 resulting in an estimated 3.5 million girls enrolled2, a sharp increase from 9,000. Despite these gains, several bottlenecks persisted. The proportion of schools specifically for girls is very low (16%) in a context where gender separation is nearly mandatory. These schools are concentrated in or close to urban areas, whilst rural and hard-to-reach areas remain poorly served. Too few female teachers, long distances to school, and poor or non-existent gender-segregated Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) facilities also create barriers to girls’ education. Moreover, the schools’ closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, heightened military and political instability in 2021, and subsequent restrictive policies resulted in further setbacks in girls’ access to education. During the school year 2022–2023, 61% of school-aged girls did not access education (vs 25% of the school-aged boys). This proportion went up to 88% for secondary school-aged girls.3 The primary access barrier to education was the new ban. There has also been an alarming deterioration in boys’ access to quality education and learning in the past 4 years.
Community-Based Education (CBE), is a key strategy utilised by Education Actors in Afghanistan to reach children without access to public schooling due to distance and other barriers. CBE includes Community-Based Classes (CBCs) and Accelerated Learning Programmes/Centres (ALPs/ALCs) and has been a part of Afghanistan’s formal education system since 2000. The modality was established under the Ministry of Education (MoE) Provincial/ District Education Departments, with qualified teachers, following the Inter-agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE) standards4.