KABUL, AFGHANISTAN- Today Minister of Education Haneef Atmar signed a Memorandum of Understanding with USAID partners CARE and Creative Associates affirming the realignment of key USAID education projects with the Ministry’s five-year strategic plan to more effectively support the goals of the Government of Afghanistan. 

 

“The Ministry values the contribution made to education by other partners, and intends to enhance the value of this contribution through improved understanding and collaborative implementations. From now on, we should agree only to allocate resources to program elements included in this plan, on the basis of an Education Compact” says Mr. Atmar in his Five Year National Strategic Plan.

 

“The teacher training and community education projects will now be better positioned to strengthen government presence in communities, increase school enrollment, and improve literacy,” said a USAID official. “Education is often the only service delivered in rural areas, and its effective provision greatly improves legitimacy for local, provincial, and national government while providing young people with the skills required resolving conflicts peacefully and participating in the licit economy.”

 

The $48 million project Building Education Support Systems for Teachers (BESST, implemented by Creative Associates over a period of five years, January 2006 – January 2011) trains and supports teacher trainers and administrators at the school, district, provincial, and central levels. BESST is helping the Ministry to roll out its teacher training model which creates local Teacher Resource Centers and Teacher Resource Teams to support teachers nearby to where they work and live. The project will initially develop the approach under the Ministry’s leadership in 22 districts in 11 provinces, with the aim of expanding the model to include national coverage with the continued support of Government of Afghanistan and contributions from other donors. 

 

In addition, the BESST project bolsters central Ministry systems that support teachers and other educators, primarily by reforming Human Resource policy and programs and improving the ability of ministry departments to understand and use data for planning, development and implementation of their programs.

 

The key focus of the $24 million Partnership for Advancing Community Education in Afghanistan (PACE-A, implemented by CARE over a period of five years, April 2006 – April 2011) project is to expand access to primary grade education for children, especially girls, who live in remote areas not currently served by government schools, in line with the MoE Policy Guidelines for Community-based Education.  PACE-A also provides support for adult literacy, accelerated learning and early childhood activities.

 

PACE-A will provide education to more than 93,000 students in 1000 villages in 17 provinces and is helping the MoE implement its school cluster system which connects government schools with community schools located nearby. PACE-A does not pay teacher stipends directly but it ensures that all teachers of PACE-A classes are compensated by the community, either in cash or in-kind.   PACE-A will continue to work with the MoE to develop an appropriate compensation plan so that the community-based teachers of PACE-A will be officially recognized and included on the MoE pay roll.

 

The U.S. government closely coordinates its education projects with projects of UNICEF, the World Bank, and other donors in the education sector. Working together under the leadership of the Ministry of Education, impressive results have been achieved. Enrollment in grades 1 to 12 has increased from 800,000 during the time of the Taliban to some 5.8 million today, with girls’ enrollment rising from 8% to 34% of all students during the same period.