PESHAWAR, Oct 6: Speakers at a function have urged the Afghan teachers to play their role in the re-construction of Afghanistan.

“The Afghan turmoil has increased the responsibility of the Afghan teachers to educate the young generation and enable them to play their part for the rehabilitation of their country,” said Dr S. B. Ekanayake, technical adviser of the GTZ’s basic education for Afghan refugees programme.

Speaking at a function held to observe the World Teachers Day in Kacha Garhi Afghan Refugees Camp here on Monday, he said that the GTZ had employed 2,878 teachers for the refugee children in 252 home school and 102 literacy centres located in Abbottabad, Bannu, Hangu, Mardan, Peshawar and Timergara.

He said that the teachers were providing formal education to 112,181 students from grade 1 to 6 at the refugees camps, who were extended assistance in the shape of free textbooks, notebooks, pencils and other educational materials.

According to him, the GTZ along with Unesco and the ILO had been supporting Afghan teachers community to prepare them for the rebuilding of Afghanistan, which had been shattered by the prolonged ward over the past 25 years.

The poor teachers, he said had been serving the humanity from time immemorial by giving the hapless people a ray of hope in trying times.

He said that he had been to Afghanistan on countless occasions to see the system from close quarters and had compiled some books concerning the state of education there, which would be translated into Pashto and Dari languages to benefit the Afghan teachers and the students.

Students from refugee schools presented skits regarding the dilapidated conditions in which they had been living. Some Afghan children enacted as street beggars, while some performed as vendors in order to seek livelihoods for their poverty-stricken families.

The skits presented by the students also revealed the prevalent thirst of education among the Afghan children.

An anthem sung by a group of students was all the more worrying, as it reflected the immense desire on the part of the refugees to see their country’s reconstruction and get there to receive education in line with their own traditions.

A teacher, Zubairullah Khan, dwelt at length about the role of teachers in a given society, saying they enjoyed matchless respect. The teachers, he said, were respected by rich and poor alike due to their established role in the political, social and economical development of the society.

Another teacher urged his fellows to concentrate on character building and raise the standard of ethics and morality of their students.