Let Them Eat Promises - Support for Higher Education in Danger in Afghanistan

The long-lasting wars in Afghanistan resulted in a dramatic deterioration of tertiary education; by 2001, there were only 7,881 students enrolled in higher education. Over the past nine years, much progress has been made to improve the sector. By 2009, student enrollment had increased to 62,000. the percentage of female students has increased from zero in 1991 to 21% in 2009. Student numbers have increased an average of 11% over the last five years. Our target is an average growth of 15% per year over the next five years to double enrollment while, simultaneously, increasing quality and updating and expanding the curriculum.

Faculty Qualifications: Currently, only 31% of faculty members have Master’s degrees and 5.5% have Ph.Ds. The goal is to have 60% of the faculty with Masters and 20% with PhDs by 2014. The research culture, the cornerstone of a modern university, has been largely eroded, and the tradition of university service to the community and nation is largely lacking. Over the last four years, this effort has been initiated with 140 faculty members who are now abroad pursuing Master’s degrees; 20 are pursuing PhD degrees with additional students pursuing a range of graduate work ina number of countries. 58 faculty members have returned with Master’s degrees and one with a PhD and are teaching at their institutions. The impact of the infusion of Master’s faculty members is most pronounced at the University of Herat where the percentage of faculty with Master’s has increased from 19.1% to 37.1%.

Infrastructure Facilities: There are not enough classrooms, dormitories, laboratories or libraries and many of those that exist need to be upgraded and/or repaired. Lack of female dormitories providing a safe environment is the single largest deterrent to increasing access for women in higher education since families are unwilling to allow their daughters to pursue higher education without secure supervised housing. Some progress has been made over the last few years with the construction of five women’s dormitories. Other improvements completed in the last few years to increase access and quality of higher education have been as follows: 1) construction of new buildings at Kabul, Bamyan, Kandahar, Nangarhar, Takhar, Herat, and Albiruni universites, 2) establishment of a library at Kandahar, 3) procurement of extensive library resources for Nangarhar, Kabul University English and Engineering Departments, Herat University Computer Science and Engineering Departments, 4) procurement of laboratory equipment for Kandahar, Kabul Medical, and Kabul Polytechnic Universities, and 5) establishment of computer facilities and professional development centers at Herat, Balkh, Kabul, Kabul Polytechnic, Kabul Medical, Kabul Education, Kandahar, Jawzjan, and Nangarhar Universities as well as Faryab, Badakshan, Kunduz, and Parwan Higher Education Institutions.

Many countries and many donors and the World Bank have played a large part in the steady improvement of this sector. With 70% of the population being under 30 years of age, it is critical that the youth (18 to 30) of Afghanistan have the facilities to get educated in an academic subject (e.g., Engineering, Math, Science, Medicine, English, etc.) or get trained in a vocational training subject (e.g., plumbing, film making, auto repair, etc.). Economic stability is key to peace and education plays a leading role in this.

The improvements in this sector and the hard work done by the local and international communities gets very little press and is not the sexiest subject to talk about when the press wants to talk about Afghanistan.

As I work in the higher education sector, this lack of attention has always been troubling and now I wish I myself had taken the time to blog about it more. Why? Because just when we are seeing the effects of years of capacity building, USAID (the largest donor) is backing away from its promises of investing in this sector.

Ambassador Eikenberry has stood before teachers in full robes, proudly celebrating their Masters degree, and stated that US will give a billion to the education sector, and very little has been given. What has been given is now on the verge of drying up and desperate pleas by us who are working in the sector are falling on deaf years.

The Deputy Minister in the Ministry of Higher Education is a man of extraordinary intelligence and integrity. We have seen him standing up to members of the Parliament refusing their children automatic admission to Universities, and insisting that they go through the formal process of qualifying. He was imprisoned and tortured during the Soviet Occupation and works hard for the country - often pulling in 80 to 90 hour weeks.

It is particularly humiliating to see him being refused by USAID to continue some programs. He has no say in how the US will spend money in his own country.

I am emotionally exhausted through this ordeal and my colleagues are too. In our office about 90 percent of the staff are Afghans and with complete bewilderment they say, "I thought Americans were our friends". It is heartbreaking and what is even more distressing is that the media does not pick up the story.

So, what is the impact of this withdrawal of funds? Funds that have been promised over and over again and then reneged on? Faculty members have to stop their Masters mid-stream, computer centers that open the world to universities located in remote provinces are shut down, leadership training that the universities themselves demanded and attended in droves are no longer available, training to faculty members on how to become better teachers shut down, training in English and Computer being offered to faculty members to enable them to do better research and publish are shut down, newly initiated Masters programs in critical areas such as Public Health and Public Administration are shut down, and the list goes on.

I wish there was a Gandhi or a Mandela or a Desmond Tutu or a Martin Luther King, Jr. to organize the teachers and students to march peacefully, or to go on a hunger strike - something that would catch the western media's attention on this visceral attack at a fundamental level on Afghanistan's ability to stand on its own feet and have it be reported.

It will need to be the Afghans themselves who protest. We are paralyzed into non-action, because we are told, "don't piss them off". If you do anything or say anything then they will get mad and the impact might be even worse.

Whether you are on the right or on the left or in the middle or nowhere in the political sphere - surely a life is a life. We have lost a lot of young men and women over here. Surely we believe that their lives have been sacrificed not to just in exchange kill a whole lot of Taliban or whoever, but those lives have also contributed to the development of a country who needs it urgently in order to become stable.

I will blog more often. I want to be that little voice that really wants to educate on how difficult development is and how politicians (even the liberal ones) need to stop talking only about the war and terrorism and Al Qaeda and really paying attention to the development strategy of Afghanistan. They need to get good people over here to over see the distribution of funds, they need skilled people who can monitor the usage of the funds, they need strong communication specialists who can tell Americans back home the successes of development and the critical role they play in the stabilization of a country and its ultimate ability to protect itself from those who wish to harm it.