The Islamic Emirate is planning to place major seminaries in all 34 provinces across the country, a senior official of the Ministry of Education said.
The acting Minister of Education, Mawlawi Noorullah Munir, visited the southeastern province of Logar to assess the educational challenges in the province. “The Ministry of Education intends to form a major seminary in every province,” he said.
The teachers complained about a lack of textbooks and teaching staff in existing schools.
“They say to hire 60 to 70 teachers but it is not enough because we have 25 schools. The number of teachers is not enough for 25 schools,” said Iqbal, a teacher. “Our main problem is lack of staff,” said Naseebullah, a teacher.
“When the Education Ministry demands we do our job properly, it should pay our salaries on time,” said Mahmood Masoud. The head of the provincial educational department confirmed the shortage of teachers.
“The main problem is we are struggling with a lack of staff. There are some secondary schools which have only four teachers,” said Mawlawi Janat Gul Aziz, head of the provincial educational department.
Meanwhile, the acting Minister of Education Mawlawi Noorullah Munir vowed to address the shortage of school textbooks. The United States abruptly cancelled meetings with the Islamic Emirate in Doha that were set to address key economic issues, officials said on Friday, after Islamic Emirate reversed a decision to allow all girls to return to high school classes.
The cancellation of talks was the first concrete sign that the Islamic Emirate’s recent moves on human rights and inclusivity could directly impact the international community’s willingness to help the Islamic Emirate, some of whose leaders are under U.S. sanctions.
“Their decision was a deeply disappointing and inexplicable reversal of commitments to the Afghan people, first and foremost, and also to the international community,” a U.S. State Department spokesperson told Reuters.
“We have cancelled some of our engagements, including planned meetings in Doha, and made clear that we see this decision as a potential turning point in our engagement.”
Three sources familiar with the matter told Reuters that the series of meeting between U.S. and Islamic Emirate administration officials were set to take place on the sidelines of a summit in Qatar’s capital on Saturday and Sunday. Some of the meetings were to have included United Nations and World Bank representatives, the sources added.
An Afghan foreign ministry spokesman confirmed that a delegation of the Islamic Emirate, including the acting foreign minister, had been expecting to go to Doha.
The talks were designed to cover issues including the independence of the Afghan central bank and the printing of Afghani currency bank notes.
Also up for discussion were a humanitarian exchange facility to free up cash and hundreds of millions of dollars of funding currently held in a World Bank Trust Fund that is earmarked for Afghanistan’s education sector, according to the three sources.—Tolonews
