Project reconstructs higher education in Afghanistan

With the recent fall of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan comes freedom for the country and its people. And with that freedom comes the chance to rebuild a torn culture. Here at IU, faculty and staff are taking that chance to rebuild Afghanistan through assisting education in its schools. \nBranching off from a higher education assistance project IU carried out in the 1960s in Afghanistan, faculty and staff are in the midst of developing new assistance to its education system.\nSupported by the U.S. Agency for International Development, IU's educational assistance program in Afghanistan during the 1960s was directly associated with Kabul University. The purpose of the assistance was "to provide advice to the executive and management staff at Kabul University in the development of more effective operations," according to a semi-annual report of the project.\nWhile in Afghanistan, IU worked to create better funding, research programs, student affairs and much more. The project was completed in 1971.\nFrom the time IU completed its assistance project until now, Afghanistan has been the center of heated wars and political unrest, which has meant damage to its education system. \n"The higher education system was totally destroyed because of wars, and many Afghan professors were leaving the country," said Professor of Anthropology Nazir Shahrani, a native of Afghanistan who attended Kabul University during IU's involvement there.\n"I stepped into a classroom last year I had sat in as a freshman that had been modern in my time, and it was painful for me," Shahrani said. "There were no lights, the blackboard was gone, and there were broken chairs everywhere. Students were sitting in the dark."\nKhwaga Kakar, a graduate student at IU from Afghanistan, also recalls the deterioration of schooling before she left Kabul, where she lived. \n"The education system was going down because boys were fleeing the country so they wouldn't be recruited for war, and the motivation level for them was low because of it," Kakar said.\nBecause of the damage to the educational system, Shahrani, who is the director of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at IU, has begun an initiative to help in the reconstruction of higher education in post-Taliban Afghanistan. He said he felt the need for assistance in a much broader aspect.\n"This project is broader because we are assisting in the strategic planning of national higher education assistance in general, not just at Kabul University," he said. "We want to encourage the development of regional universities in different areas, and our idea is to include both Afghans and non-Afghans who will be able to assist in the planning."\nThe project in works, which began with a strategic planning conference on Oct. 6 and 7 of 2002, is geared toward the hope of developing a blueprint for higher education.\n"The conference participants decided to undertake two important steps in helping educational reconstruction in Afghanistan: to form the Foundation for Afghanistan Higher Education and the Afghanistan Studies Association," Shahrani said.\nAmong the supporters of the endeavor is Dean of International Studies Patrick O'Meara.\n"This project brings together people who have lived in Afghanistan who have hopes for its future," he said.\nWhile the project has not been implemented in all aspects yet, Shahrani has been working toward it with a different project called "Roundhouses for Refugees."\n"Roundhouses for Refugees" is a project started by retired professor Alan Knox of the University of Wisconsin and his wife, Linda. Together through the Madison Community Foundation they bought 25 "roundhouses" developed by Robert Leslie, an Australian inventor. These "roundhouses," which look like the typical yurt used in the Afghanistan area, are one-room wooden dwellings with 200 square feet that can withstand harsh conditions. The original plan was to somehow get help to the Afghanistan people during the U.S. bombings there.\nNot knowing what exactly to do with the houses, the Knoxes contacted Shahrani. Being a native of the province Badakhshan, he put forth the idea of donating the houses to Badakhshan Medical School in Faizabad.\n"They could serve as medical clinics where students would have a chance to learn and provide medical services to rural areas," he said. "My idea is that this is a very practical application of this education assistance project."\nShahrani sees the roundhouse project as a way to give assistance to other areas of education in Afghanistan. He said they are a good lead to the project developing at IU.\nTogether with Leslie, the inventor, Shahrani plans to visit Badakhshan this summer to help with assembly and implementation of the roundhouses, in hopes of starting this type of assistance all over Afghanistan.