Monitoring Desk
KABUL: Fifty-seven percent of school buildings which have newly been constructed need rehabilitation and 70 percent schools in some provinces lack adequate books, a survey released on Wednesday said.
The study conducted by the Integrity Watch Afghanistan (IWA) said 30 percent schools across Afghanistan are without drinking water facilities, said IWA head Syed Akram Afzali.
He told a press conference in Kabul that despite receiving billions of dollars from donors for education, Afghanistan’s education remained at low level from infrastructural and quality perspectives.
The survey covered 276 schools in Kabul, Balkh, Baghlan, Faryab, Khost, Kunduz, Parwan, Kapesa and Herat provinces. Afzali said the United States had alone provided $760 million to Afghanistan for primary and intermediate education between 2002 and 2014.
He said half of functional schools in the country lacked buildings and conducted classes under the open skies.
He said 8,700 schools had buildings but they lacked sufficient space, forcing school administration to create two or three shifts.
He added of 276 schools covered in the survey 70 percent newly-constructed schools had infrastructural flaws with their roofs cracked or had doors or windows broken.
Sardar Mohammad Rahimi, deputy literacy head at the Ministry of Education, acknowledged the mentioned problems and said his ministry had chalked out a five-year plan to deal with problems plaguing the vital sector.
He said problems mentioned in the survey would also be resolved through the new plan. He said issues the education sector faced were ‘big’ and needed to be resolved on national level.
