PESHAWAR, Nov 1: The Afghan transitional government requires some $10 million for printing textbooks for schoolchildren for the next academic year, concerned NGO officials said here.

Officials of the University of Nebraska at Omaha, running a printing press in Peshawar, told Dawn here on Friday that more than 3.50 million school-going children needed 20 million textbooks for the coming academic year starting from March 23, 2003.

The general manager of the University of Nebraska printing press, Ahmad Shah Durrani, said the US government had yet to provide the required amount to the transitional government to start printing of teaching material for over 3.50 million children.

He said America’s Rapid Response to Education Needs of Afghanistan (Arrena), a USAID-funded NGO, running its main offices in Peshawar, had suspended its education project in Peshawar due to non-availability of funds. The Arrena, however, was running teachers’ training and vocational training programmes inside Afghanistan, he pointed out.

“Arrena has suspended its activities in Peshawar whereas the University of Nebraska temporarily closed its printing press in Peshawar,” Durrani said.

He said Kabul was optimistic that the US government would release $10 million by the end of December to prepare new books and continue educational activities in the war-torn country.

The US government made a sanction of Rs300 million in February last under its USAID programme for printing teaching material for Afghan children.

This academic year the University of Nebraska printed 12 million books in Peshawar and Lahore and distributed these among 1.5 million primary, middle and high school children inside Afghanistan, free of cost.

Unicef and some other NGOs are distributing teaching material inside Afghanistan and the refugee camps in Pakistan.

The officials said in the first phase the Afghan government made 30 per cent changes into textbooks and for the next year the education ministry had proposed 60 per cent additional changes into the textbooks.