There have been no high school graduates in the past 20 years in five districts of the southeastern province of Paktika, tribal elders said, saying the lack of high schools and the poor education system are the reasons thousands of youth are deprived of an education.
According to the students of these districts, the families who are in a good economic condition send their children to the provincial capital city, Sharana, to continue their schools but those families strug-gling with severe economic conditions are unable to send their children to the capital for continuing edu-cation.
The districts Worombai, Tarwi, Dila Khoshamand, Naka and Barmal are where the education system was not properly active due to security tensions during the former Afghan governments. “No school has been constructed in our district. Our youth migrated to other countries,” said Zahid, a student in Barmal district.
“There was no school in Khoshamand district dur-ing the former government’s time. The Islamic Emirate should construct us a school,’ said Mohammad Daud, a student in Khoshamand dis-trict.
The tribal elders called on the Islamic Emirate to construct schools and provide educational opportu-nities for the residents of these districts. “We don’t have any high school graduates in far areas and some districts of Paktika. We call on the Islamic Emirate officials to construct schools for us,” said Abdul Rahim, a tribal elder in Khosha-mand.
The provincial education department confirmed the issue, saying that there were no high school gradua-tions in the past 20 years in these districts.
“Our focus is currently on the areas that lack abso-lute access to this right (education), we try to pro-vide them their rights in a proper way,” said the head of the Paktika education department.
Paktika is along the Durand Line in the southeast of Afghanistan. The education health sectors of Pak-tika have not properly developed over the past 20 years, in which billions of dollars were provided by the international community as part of the humani-tarian support to Afghanistan. —TOLO
