KABUL: War-weary Afghans want their government to give top priority to education, but Taliban arson attacks on schools are on the rise in Afghanistan with many being closed for security reasons.

A headmaster was shot dead in Zabul province, and at least 200 schools in Kandahar and 165 schools in Helmund provinces closed in January for security reasons.

Taliban insurgents set fire to a middle school for girls in the capital of western Farah province, destroying all the furniture, library and some classrooms, Deputy Governor Haji Bismillah Khan said. The torching of schools is also rampant in the southern and south-eastern parts of the country where some 20 incidents have taken place in the recent past.

Mirza Jan, a resident of Lashkargah, said the Taliban have several times threatened them with death if they sent their children to schools. Deputy Education Minister Siddiq Patman said the widespread insecurity has crippled the education system.

According to Haji Mohammad Qasim, Director of Education in Helmund, “first security should be established in the region. It is a vital step for imparting education, without which the smooth process of learning is impossible.”

Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) in Kandahar has expressed deep concern over the closure of schools, particularly in the lawless southern provinces. AIHRC head, Engineer Abdul Qadir Noorzai, said both the public and the government have a responsibility to ensure that the schools reopen soon. Approximately 6.5 million children go to Afghanistan’s roughly 9,000 schools, employing 14,000 teachers.

But only a third of the schools are housed in proper buildings, and there is an acute shortage of teaching materials, teachers and furniture. The majority of children study under tents or in the ruins of buildings destroyed in the fighting.

Faridullah, a six-grade student in the northern Samangan province, said: “We want the government to build schools for us and provide us with a place to study in.” Sayed Munir, 23, from Sherberghan, the capital of the northern Jowzjan province, urged the government to pay closer attention to education, a basic need.

Nasir Ahmad, a resident of Ghazni city, said the government and the aid agencies should upgrade the professional capacity of teachers and provide books for the schools in addition to the physical reconstruction.

A survey conducted by an Afghan news agency in 28 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces this month put education on the top of the basic needs list of most Afghans polled. Education officials in Kabul admit that there are lots of problems on the ground, but insist they are trying to solve them.

The ministry in its Accountability Week annual report card, submitted last November, said efforts were under way to expand access to schools and capacity building.

Fourteen new school buildings were handed over to local officials in northern Balkh and southern Ghazni provinces this month. Three middle schools for boys in Ghazni, which has seen several incidents of school burning last year, was funded by the Japanese and built at a cost 240,000 dollars.

Ji Nochi Sumi, representative of the Japanese government in the embassy in Kabul, said Japan would launch more reconstruction projects in Afghanistan, especially in Mazar-i-Sharif, capital of Balkh, between 2006 and 2009. These would include construction of schools, roads and health clinics.

Afghanistan’s reconstruction is on the agenda of a two-day global meeting opening in London on Jan. 31 to discuss the central Asian country’s future. More than 70 countries will be pledging financial and technical assistance to rebuild the war-ravaged country.

Large parts of the country are still restive. Taliban insurgents have been targetting government employees, teachers and students in Helmand, accusing them of cooperating with the government.

Shah Agha, who lives in Babaji, in Lashkargah city, showed IPS a copy of a ‘night letter’ distributed by the Taliban in early January, which reads: “If you want to be safe in the world and in the life hereafter, then don’t go to the centres set up by infidels.”

The letter adds: “Teacher salaries are financed by non-believers. Unless you stop getting wages from them, you will be counted among the American puppets.” A co-educational school in Kandahar city was torched overnight on Jan 7, disrupting the examination process of some 700 students. Before the incident, the Taliban had similarly distributed pamphlets warning students to stay at homes.

With their backs to the wall, Defence Ministry representative Lt. Gen Jan Khan and Zalmi Rasool, presidential adviser on security, announced security would be beefed in Helmand province with the deployment of about 300 additional security personnel.

—Dawn/IPS News Service