Suffer The Children
What else do children require more than anything else, absent love and care, but education. The lack of which ensures that ignorance will prevail, that no questions will erupt about traditions that don't serve their best interests. A situation guaranteed to prolong human suffering because of a lack of educational opportunities, ensuring that poverty, lack of initiative, endurance of the unendurable persists.The first order of business of any society should be to educate the young. To give them the opportunity to learn, to absorb information that will be of value to them. Not circumscribed, religion-based rites, but to learn how to read, to write, to become numerate, to know something about the world around them. In a country whose religion inspires the politics of the nation, and which denies education to girl children, the resulting adult women remain social pawns.
In one of the poorest, most backward countries of the world, struggling to take itself out of the syndrome of persistent warfare and domination by foreign powers, followed by the clutch of religious extremists, girl children have traditionally been denied education. Boy children have been allowed an education that bears no resemblance to secular-based learning, but is steeped in oral recitation of Koranic precepts in a language they have no knowledge of.
In efforts to mitigate the sterile learning environment of Afghanistan's children Canada has so far built five schools with another 28 under construction, amid plans to build or to renovate another 50 schools by 2011, in Kandahar province. CARE International, in conjunction with the World Bank and the Government of Afghanistan has released new findings about the state of education in that country.
Attacks on schools in the country by the Taliban, by criminal groups, and through tribal infighting are on the increase; primarily, however, by the Taliban. The Afghan Ministry of Education has released information detailing 230 deaths as a result of attacks on schools between 2006 and 2007. While 19% of the country's schools are girls-only, they remain highly targeted, making up 40% of attacks.
There were 1,153 attacks on schools in the country, including poisonings, murders, acid attacks on schoolgirls, and rocket and grenade attacks between 2006 and 2008. That number is on the increase. Since 2009, 670 schools across the country have been closed; 65% to 81% as a result of security concerns in the southern provinces, where the Taliban have gained strength.
The country's Ministry of Education figures reveal that 203 teachers, principals and MoE district staff were shot dead between 2006 and 2008. In that same period one hundred and ten students were killed at school sites, or while on their way home from school.
"Arson predominates; according to the UNICEF database. Explosions take second place: grenades have been thrown through school windows, mines placed in school walls, and rockets fired at schools", according to the report.
This is the first study of its kind, a comprehensive look at the prevailing situation, with the hope of improving the system of education in the country. How that will be possible without the guarantee of security is beyond anyone's guess. One no-brainer is to build schools inside existing communities, not in isolated areas as is currently the practise.
Labels: Human Rights, Political Realities, World Crises
posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, November 24, 2009
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