VZCZCXRO4792
OO RUEHDBU RUEHIK RUEHYG
DE RUEHBUL #0973/01 0841330
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
O 251330Z MAR 07
FM AMEMBASSY KABUL
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 7033
INFO RUCNAFG/AFGHANISTAN COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RUEHZG/NATO EU COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RHEHAAA/NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY
RHEFDIA/DIA WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY
RUEKJCS/OSD WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY
RUEKJCS/JOINT STAFF WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY
RHMFIUU/HQ USCENTCOM MACDILL AFB FL PRIORITY
RHMFIUU/COMSOCCENT MACDILL AFB FL PRIORITY
RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK PRIORITY 3818

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 KABUL 000973 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
DOD FOR USDP EDELMAN 
STATE FOR SCA/FO A/S BOUCHER AND SAS GASTRIGHT, SCA/A, 
S/CRS, SCA/PB, S/CT, EUR/RPM 
STATE PASS TO USAID FOR AID/ANE, AID/DCHA/DG 
NSC PASS TO AHARRIMAN 
OSD FOR KIMMITT 
CENTCOM FOR CFC-A, CG CJTF-76, POLAD, JICCENT 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREL PGOV PTER ASEC MARR AF
SUBJECT: PRT ASADABAD: EDUCATION FAILING IN KUNAR 
 
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Summary 
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¶1. (SBU) Education is a priority in Kunar and provides an 
opportunity to engage and influence communities throughout 
the province.  Elders from every district consistently rate 
education -- including girls' education -- as one of their 
top priorities, and school buildings among their most 
pressing needs.  PRT Asadabad has helped improve Kunar's 
education infrastructure, making a small contribution to a 
large problem.  Funding for additional school buildings and 
school supplies could generate goodwill among parents and 
relatives of school-age children and expand the reach of the 
Afghan Government in Kunar.  The PRT has a plan to improve 
the education infrastructure, but needs far exceed the PRT's 
limited resources.  END SUMMARY. 
 
---------------- 
Schools in Tents 
---------------- 
 
¶2. (SBU) According to the provincial Department of Education, 
Kunar has 313 schools, of which 86 have buildings.  The rest 
use tents, or the shade of a tree.  The education department 
claims that there are, in total, 140,000 students enrolled in 
Kunar,s schools.  While it is difficult to say whether this 
number is accurate, the figures do suggest two negative 
trends.  First, girls attend school in much lower numbers 
than boys.  Even in primary school, girls account for only 
about one-third of all students.  Second, school attendance 
drops off sharply for boys and girls after primary school. 
Boys' attendance in middle school is about 80 percent less 
than in primary school, while for girls the decline is even 
greater.  In a few districts the education department figures 
showed no girls enrolled in middle school.  Enrollment 
figures for high school were unavailable, but the Director of 
Education told the PRT that in 2006 just 450 boys graduated 
from high school.  He expected that this number would 
increase to over 800 for 2007.  The Education Director 
guessed that perhaps 50 of the 2006 graduates would go on to 
university outside Kunar. 
 
----------------------------- 
Girls' Education Very Limited 
----------------------------- 
 
¶3. (SBU) Only 19 girls graduated from Kunar's high schools in 
¶2006.  Of the four girls' high schools, only one has been in 
operation long enough to produce a 
graduating class and another, the Fatima Girls' School, was 
built with PRT funds.  In addition to the lack of 
school buildings for girls, there are only one hundred 
female teachers in the province, woefully short of demand. 
The Education Director notes that most of these teachers are 
older, trained before the civil war and Taliban government. 
 
¶4. (SBU) Although girls' education is limited, a recent 
attempt to stop it completely did not succeed.  In December 
four women who worked at a girls' school in Narang District 
were murdered at their houses, after receiving warnings to 
stop their teaching activities.  Ten other female teachers 
from the village fled to Kabul following the attack (one 
female teacher remained in the village, but is teaching at 
home).  The Education Director has continued to pay the 
salaries of the teachers while they are in Kabul, and is 
negotiating their return to work.  They condition their 
return on the establishment of a police checkpoint near the 
school and a new, more secure school building.  The Education 
Director said better physical security was being arranged, 
and the new ANAP would likely establish a checkpoint near the 
school.  Girls' schools elsewhere in Kunar have not been 
affected, and elders from around the province continue to 
 
KABUL 00000973  002 OF 003 
 
 
press the PRT to build structures so that girls can attend 
school separately from boys.  A few threats have been made 
against schools elsewhere in Kunar in the past year, but no 
other schools have been closed by pressure from 
anti-government forces. 
 
---------------- 
Teacher Training 
---------------- 
 
¶5. (SBU) Kunar's only post-secondary educational institution, 
the Asadabad Teacher Training College, has about 300 students 
studying Pashtu, English, Math, Biology, Chemistry, 
Geography, and Religion.  They hope to add courses in 
Physics, History, and Dari.  The College takes candidates 
with only a High School education, starting them as trainee 
teachers for half the day, and students at the Teacher,s 
College for the second half.  The education director said 
that due to the dire need for female teachers, the College 
accepts female candidates with only an eighth grade 
education. 
 
¶6. (SBU) The education budget in Kunar is approximately Af 28 
million per quarter.  Twenty-five million of this is salaries 
to the education department's 4,010 employees.  The other 3 
million is for maintenance, materials, and new construction. 
The Education Department reports no problems in receiving the 
quarterly payment from Kabul.  Each district has an 
Education Department finance representative, who takes the 
money from the bank in Asadabad and distributes it to the 
cashier of each school in his district.  The Director said 
that there was a plan for each teacher to draw their salary 
directly from the bank in their district, but this depended 
on the establishment of branch banks in each district. 
 
--------------------- 
English Teaching Weak 
--------------------- 
 
¶7. (SBU) The PRT's experience has been that most local high 
school graduates who claim to speak English do not.  English 
is taught in public schools for an hour or two each week from 
the sixth grade on.  No one in the province has sufficient 
English language skills to establish teaching standards or to 
evaluate teacher performance.  There are a few private 
English teaching institutes around Kunar, and the Ibn Sina 
center in Asadabad.  Demand for English skills is high 
because such skills make possible the pursuit of educational 
and employment opportunities outside Kunar. 
 
------------------------- 
Prospects for Improvement 
------------------------- 
 
¶8. (SBU) The Director of Education has ideas to improve 
education, including establishing scholarships and academic 
prize competitions, but lacks funds.  The Ministry of 
Education plans to establish vocational and teacher training 
centers dubbed "Centers of Excellence" in every district, and 
to construct fifty new school buildings in every province for 
$9 million per province, but it will take time.  A Deputy 
Minister of Education told the PRT that Kunar, as a "tier 
III" province, would have to wait for funding to be allocated 
to bigger provinces first. 
 
¶9. (SBU) USAID has funded the construction of ten schools in 
eight districts of Kunar.  UNICEF provides 
tents for schools and school supplies and has built eleven 
school buildings.  The PRT has provided school supplies in 
several districts.  The PRT has also developed and is seeking 
funds to implement a Kunar Education Improvement Project, 
which will provide improvements to existing schools and will 
construct new 
 
KABUL 00000973  003 OF 003 
 
 
school buildings in each district.  The PRT's plan is to 
provide $1,000 per school to the seventy oldest of the 86 
existing school buildings for renovations (total of $70,000), 
$100,000 to buy teachers' supplies for schools throughout the 
province, and $150,000 for new furniture for existing school 
structures.  We would also build one school per district, for 
$1.5 million.  This would, over the course of a year or more, 
help alleviate some of the shortage of school buildings.  But 
getting classroom space and teachers for a majority of 
Kunar,s children will have to wait for the arrival of large 
resources from the central government or from foreign donors. 
 
NEUMANN