WUNRN
PHOTO GALLERY: Afghan girls and women embrace education
AFGHANISTAN - GIRLS & WOMEN
EMBRACE EDUCATION - PHOTOS +
First-graders
exhibit varying degrees of attention as a classmate does a math problem on the
board at the front of the class at Speena Adi school in Kabul, Afghanistan, in
May 2012. Some 3,800 students attend Grades 1 through 9 here.
Under
Taliban rule, fewer than 50,000 girls attended school in Afghanistan. Today,
3.2 million attend.
At Speena
Adi school, 3,800 girls from first to ninth grade crowd into classrooms for
four hours each day. They are the afternoon session in a building that was
a boys-only high school during the Taliban years (1996-2001).
There is no electricity in the
building, leaving hallways dark and some classrooms quite dim, yet pupils seem
enthusiastic to learn. Occasionally the girls go outside to the water pump to
get a drink of water or wash their hands.
Compared
with other Afghan schools, Speena Adi is relatively well staffed. Even as more
children come to school, many challenges remain: overcrowding; inadequate
teacher pay; a paucity of school supplies; and, most distressing, hundreds of
incidents of violence against schools, teachers, and even students by Taliban
agents.