Kabul, April 15, 2010 - Higher education is the backbone for development in any country while in Afghanistan the attention from the donor countries has rather been on constructions of schools or short term trainings.
For the last eight years there have been several generous donations to Afghanistan. But there has been less focus on higher level education to train future leaders or policy makers of a severely devastated education system. In this regard the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan (SCA) is the only non-governmental organisation in Afghanistan facilitating the Master Programme in Educational Development and Research (MAP).
The need is acknowledged by all stakeholders as well as policy makers.
"Our ministry needs well educated academic persons as well as managerial leaders to deliver quality work into the whole system of education in Afghanistan" says Mohammad Nabi Shahab, Senior Scholarship Manager at the Ministry of Education (MoE).
The programme has 21 students from MoE, Nangarhar University and other non-governmental organisations engaged in education sector.
"The MAP programme is very effective since the students are staying in Afghanistan. They contribute directly to the Afghan education system since they work parallel to their studies", says Mr. Shahab.
The MAP programme, which started in May 2008, is dedicated to MoE only and is the first ever regular Master programme for the ministry in Afghanistan. There are a few other programmes for higher education provided by some countries but these scholarships are shared between all the ministries and the students are sent abroad for studies.
The students are registered at Karlstad University in Sweden but the teaching takes place at the Faculty of Education at Nangarhar University in Afghanistan.
The training is supported by the University of Karlstad in Sweden (which has the main responsibility), Tampere University of Finland, Bochem University of Germany and Kathmandu University of Nepal. The Swedish Committee for Afghanistan is the associate partner of MAP and provides technical assistance.
The students are now in the phase of defending the first thesis at SCA's main office in Kabul. The examiners are professors from the University of Karlstad and Stockholm in Sweden. The 21 theses have focused on female education in Afghanistan.
The programme will end in October 2010 and the participants will defend their second thesis at the Karlstad University. The two years Master degree will be issued by the mentioned university.
The MAP programmes main financial support comes from the European Union.
For more information please contact:
Mr. Mohammad Amir Mansory
Project Coordinator of MAP/Afghanistan, SCA
Phone: +93 (0) 799 309 814
E-mail: amir.mansory@sca.or.af