English Education Sparks Controversy

Friday, 21 October, 2005

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Amanullah Nasrat

Kabul’s first fully-private primary school has opened and has already attracted 400 pupils whose parents are willing to pay up to 50 US dollars a month for the teaching. But the English-only curriculum at the International Model School has set off a fierce debate within the education community.

"I came here from Pakistan where I studied in English,” said nine-year old Nilou Jan, wearing the school’s distinctive uniform of a light blue blouse and black trousers. “When this school started up, I was so happy because there is no [other] school which will teach lessons in the English language.”

Her satisfaction, however, stands in sharp contrast to complaints from some educational specialists about the use of English rather than Dari or Pashto as the teaching medium.

"I do not agree with schools giving lessons via foreign languages from the primary level,” said Ghotai Khowri, a member of Afghanistan Academy of Sciences.

Khowri insists that classes should be conducted in Afghanistan’s two main languages from kindergarten through high school, so as to safeguard the national culture.

“Teaching should be carried out in our languages first of all, and in foreign languages only in higher education studies," she added.

Hamidullah Farooqi, a former Kabul university economics lecturer who set up the new school, disagrees. Now the school’s principal, he argues that teaching in English gives his students access to the latest books and technology from around the world, particularly important as Afghanistan struggles to rejoin the international community after more than two decades of war and isolation.

But education officials are not swayed by this argument.

"We are not against the English language," the deputy education minister Mohammad Sediq Patman told IWPR, noting that English is commonly taught as part of the state school curriculum. It is not, however, used as the medium of instruction.

"It is a condition [for the new school] that its curriculum should be based on the Afghan one," he said.

The school opened on September 25, accepting children from three to 12 years old. The kindergarten, which has 60 under-fives is open from 7:30 to 10:30 in the morning, with a break to play in a grassy recreation area equipped with swings and slides. The older children attend classes from 7:30 to 1:30.

The International Model School is one of very few educational institutions in Afghanistan where boys and girls sit in the same classroom. During the Taleban era, girls were barred from attending school altogether.

The school is housed in a building almost directly across the street from Kabul stadium, where the Taleban carried out public executions while they were in power.

So far, the school has not been authorised to operate by the education ministry although Patman told IWPR that private schools are allowed under the constitution and a new law to regulate them is being drafted by the ministry.

School information officer Mohammad Tariq Salimi said, "We have tried our best to get authorisation for the school from the education ministry, but have been told by officials there that we have to wait until a new decree is issued by the president."

Headmaster Farooqi, who continues to lecture in economics at the university, likes to view his school as part of the free-market transformation taking place in Afghanistan. “Competition is necessary to lift standards. This is true for both public and private education sectors,” he said.

The school charges 30, 40 and 50 dollars a month for kindergarten, pupils in the first and second years and the higher grades respectively. There are 18 teachers for the 400 pupils, with two more due to be hired shortly, said Salimi. They are paid 200 dollars a month, significantly higher than the average salary of 60 dollars paid to teachers in the state system.

This allows the school to maintain a class size of 20, in contrast to the 50 or more common in the state schools.

According to Salimi, the school’s curriculum is equivalent to that used in the state sector, the major difference being that all subjects, except the national languages Dari and Pashtu, are taught in English.

Teacher Ahmad Daud came to the school from the Abdul Hadi Dawi High School. "I have a masters’ degree in English literature and for that reason I want to be involved in teaching the children of my countrymen," he said.

Zulaikha, a female teacher at the school who has just returned after 18 months living in Pakistan, said English had become a part of office life in Afghanistan, so competency in the language was essential.

Salimi says dozens of people have visited the school in the short time since it opened, and there is now a waiting list.

As if to prove Salimi's point, a woman named Nazia came into the building, holding the hand of her ten-year-old daughter.

"I want to enroll my daughter here because I have heard that the quality of teaching is better than other schools, and that they teach in English. There is no such teaching elsewhere," she told IWPR.

Amanullah Nasrat is an IWPR staff reporter in Kabul.