PESHAWAR, March 16: Afghanistan needs a multi-million dollar investment to develop essential infrastructure for 1.5 million children who are likely to begin their school education after Nauroz, the Afghan spring festival to be celebrated on March 21.

Talking to Dawn at a school-bag distribution ceremony held for Afghan children here on Saturday, Unesco country manager Hassan Keynan said that Afghanistan had lost 80 per cent of its education sector infrastructure owing to prolonged civil war.

Thousands of school buildings had been demolished, he added.

The Unesco official said that over 1.5 million children would start going to schools soon after the festival while the country’s existing infrastructure could accommodate only 400,000 children.

Mr Keynan said that Unesco and other agencies would not design curriculum for Afghan schools and added that it could best be developed by the Afghan themselves.

“We have given them the opportunity to discuss their immediate needs and make a quick decision,” he said, adding that Unesco was ready to provide material and technical assistance to the Afghan education ministry.

He said the agency had already established its office in Kabul and two weeks back a meeting regarding designing new curriculum had been held with senior officials of the education ministry.

Earlier, in her speech at the ceremony, Unesco director Ingeborg Breines said that the agency had put a lot of emphasis on developing material for teachers training.

Later, the director donated 1,500 school bags to refugee children that would be distributed through Ockenden International Pakistan.