Adult Education in Afghanistan: A Social Change Opportunity

This is probably going to be my last entry on education in Afghanistan that targets adults in general. My next few posts will focus on education initiatives focused on women. Last time I described the thousands of adult education centers and some of the specific adult education programs that serve Afghans. This post is about the practical benefits for citizens, local businesses, and foreign businesses.

Education for adults should yield many practical benefits over the next few years. Higher education is a special case of that of course. If the university graduates don’t find enough jobs available, there better be resources available for them to create their own businesses or nonprofits. Otherwise, there is a huge waste of human resources going on.

(It would be interesting to read evaluation reports that describe the impacts of those adult education programs. I don't know of any publicly available evaluations.)

What about adults who are not university students? How can programs for them contribute to faster development in Afghanistan? Consider these benefits:

1. Better business management/decision making – Being able to read market reports and similar information helps. Business math helps you understand how much you are spending relative to how much you are making. It helps identify whether investments make sense based on the potential future returns.

2. New job opportunities – Many jobs are going to be closed to illiterate people. Many jobs are going to be closed to people who lack some fundamental business and tech skills.

3. Improvement in government – Literacy and numeracy contribute to understanding the issues and the arguments put forth by candidates. Adults are able to better digest information for themselves. I fear that lots of information gets filtered through mullahs, imams, and village elders who may be either hopelessly biased or just not too reliable.

Maybe social media and the Internet can help advertisers, both businesses and nonprofits, communicate more effectively to a literate population. Promoting behavior changes, or simply presenting an advertising message are two things that work online. Even if there is no Internet communication involved, literate people are going to be easier to reach and persuade with a marketing message.

Naturally, Afghanistan will benefit if there are more gainfully employed people and more small businesses generating taxable revenues. So, what are the best ways to pay for the educational efforts that will produce that taxable revenue in the future? Aside from grants and foreign (government) investment, there are several possibilities.

Perhaps adult education could be supported by selling information about the learners. Aside from the obvious demographic data like gender and age and occupation, it might be valuable to know about the person’s tastes or aspirations. The information on a given city or province could be aggregated to help businesses, nonprofits, and governments answer various questions: Is there a viable market for smart phones in Herat?

Collecting market information might not be viable as a way to fund a startup, but maybe after the education business gets started there would be enough useful information to sell. As a start-up, it would be necessary to have some revenue coming in at first, from channels that are known to work. That truth does suggest some creative questions:

• Could advertising be put on the PCs in the training center?
• Could a reputable area business sponsor printing of some learning materials, in exchange for being able to put a small advertisement in the back? This works in the West, so why not in Afghanistan?

Likewise, Internet-based adult education offers opportunities to learn more about people in Afghanistan. What are different types of business owners buying or talking about buying? What needs are currently unmet? This information can be gathered now, but might be highly biased by the few adults who have reliable access to the Internet, most likely through their university or a local Internet café.

To learn more about education and economic development in Afghanistan, check out my Web channel for other blog posts and videos.

Adult Education and Development in Afghanistan

(In case the following is a bit confusing...allow me to explain. The bulk of these posts on Afghanistan will deal with development and education in Afghanistan. Those are sociological subjects of study, of course, and education and development projects offer opportunities to promote social change.

Increasing educational opportunities for women in Afghanistan is one obvious example of promoting social change. Sociological work relevant to social movements, economic life, institutions, and the diffusion of innovations and just some basic thinking from a sociological perspective will be useful. More details in future posts

- End of sidebar)

Last time I wrote about adult education and opportunities in Afghanistan in a broad way. This time I want to say a few things about what’s being done today to educate Afghanistan’s adults, with some reference to women in particular. The point is to indicate where opportunities might exist for enterprising non-profits, and businesses of course.

There are a number of players in the adult literacy field in Afghanistan. The Afghan Ministry of Education is one of them. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) either has run or is running a number of adult literacy programs, including the following:

1. Business development services

2. Training and materials for women who want to work at home

3. Training for farmers on how to improve quality and productivity

4. Teacher training

5. Education in how to grow different crops

Adult literacy centers have been popping up all across the country. There are now centers in 20 provinces. The number of learning centers has grown from 1,100 a few years ago to over 6,800 today.  

Now, that list of USAID programs offers some ideas of where to look for opportunities. What areas are not well served by organization’s offering farmer training or business development services? Are there opportunities in those locations for Afghan entrepreneurs or even for foreign corporations? I think most of rural Afghanistan is still too dangerous for most foreign investors’ tastes. However, the provincial capitals should still offer legitimate opportunities.

The current state of adult education in Afghanistan raises some marketing questions. How many adults are not within 10 miles of one of those adult literacy centers? How many teachers, would-be teachers, and entrepreneurial farmers are waiting for training? How could that training be best delivered to them? Would a business or a small and nimble NGO be able to fill in one of those gaps in at least one location? Yes of course.

The means of delivering adult education as a business or as a social venture can be changed too. Having a physical classroom is obviously going to be required in many cases. The nation’s infrastructure simply will not support online learning nationwide. However, in areas with Internet connections and reliable electricity supplies, online learning options exist. Training for a teaching certificate could be done online. Information and lessons relevant to public health and entrepreneurship could be distributed online.

Mobile applications may have some educational value, though I don’t think there are many smart phones in Afghanistan yet. Maybe that’s not true. Maybe market penetration is enough in certain segments of the population for mobile apps to have some value anyway.

To learn more about education and economic development in Afghanistan, check out my Web channel for other blog posts and videos.

 

 

 

Education in Afghanistan

This is to be the first of a series of essays on education, economic development, and women's issues in Afghanistan.

Let's start by diving into some statistics on education and the economy in Afghanistan. These numbers will give some sense of how far the country needs to go to become prosperous.

The literacy rate in Afghanistan is about 28% (12% for women).

The unemployment rate was 35% in 2009 and the poverty rate was 36%, according to the World Factbook.

In 2011, there were an estimated 8.2 million students in a country with a population of 26 million.

From 2005 to 2012 the attendance rate at primary school was about 66% for boys and 44% for girls. Secondary school attendance was an even lower 18% for boys and 6% for girls.

I guess the sociologist in me insisted that those statistics be put out there, to offer some context for discussions of what's being done to improve the economic prospects for Afghanistan's citizens. Those school attendance rates and literacy rates suggest just how big the challenge really is.

While school attendance has climbed, dramatically so for girls, literacy and general education in Afghanistan are still far behind where they need to be for the country to prosper. In particular, literacy and some basic skills like arithmetic and computer literacy are keys to individual prosperity and for economic progress. Computer skills, basic math skills, and literacy are no longer optional for anyone wishing to make his or her way in the world.

Those truths are quite clear to decision makers in the Afghan government in international NGOs, and in businesses like Film Annex. The private not-for-profit American University opened a campus in Kabul in 2009. UNICEF and USAID are actively building or rebuilding schools and community centers.

Businesses are using social media, advertising, and computers to set up schools and computer labs. More detail on how these programs are working will be coming in future posts. I'll also talk about Film Annex efforts to use business thinking to promote education and economic development in Afghanistan.

I've worked on anti-poverty activism before, so I will try to bring some of what I learned to this series of posts. My background in sociology will come through in the posts, though not in a pedantic way. I hope.

Adult Education and Economic Development in Afghanistan

Adult Education in Afghanistan:

Education in Afghanistan involves more than building schools and getting kids to go to them. There is also a need to educate the majority of adults who cannot read and write. Economic development requires that more adults learn to read and write, in addition to mastering some other basic skills like business math and critical thinking.

In the last post I mentioned that adult education offers opportunities for entrepreneurs in the country and businesses located outside the country too. As with any business enterprise you have to understand the social environment where you will be operating.

A little market research will reveal the scale of government and nonprofit efforts to provide adult literacy classes. The need for a business to fill in the gaps only becomes clear when you know where the gaps are.

Government agencies, nonprofits, and the United Nations have poured resources plenty of resources poured into the adult education over the past few years. Here are some examples of adult education efforts sponsored by governments or NGOs:

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) runs two programs that provide literacy classes and some basic skills training throughout Afghanistan. Literacy Initiative for Empowerment and the Programme for Enhancement of Literacy in Afghanistan in partnership with 30 other organizations, according to their Web site.

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) provides adult education as a means to help people find alternatives to growing opium poppies. An idea: Where else in Afghanistan does an adult education program need to be designed to help the locals prepare for alternative work?

UN Habitat operates an adult education program called Learning for Community Empowerment in 20 of Afghanistan's 34 provinces.

The nonprofit Helvetas Afghanistan operate adult literacy programs in 4 provinces.

Together those programs seem to cover most of the country, but not all needed services are available in all parts of the country.

Do poor adults in towns outside the most important provinces have access to classes on reading, writing, and basic math education?

How many of those adults also have access to training that can provide them with marketable skills.

Are there programs that can reach women in rural areas who may live beyond the reach of mobile phone services and roads? Is there a business model for reaching them?

Naturally, there should be opportunities to make money by offering adult education classes. Foreign investors could use data from computer labs to develop profiles of the local markets. The collection, analysis, and packaging of that information could be a legitimate business opportunity too.

Education and Development in Afghanistan

This post might, or might not, be the first of a series on economic development in Afghanistan seen as an education challenge and a source of opportunity for education entrepreneurs. There are opportunities to earn a living by providing training, information, and education to Afghans if one looks hard enough. I'll also say more about that in future posts.

Literacy rates in Afghanistan remain low in general, with women generally and men in rural areas having lower literacy rates.Yet, literacy is essential for a citizen of a modern state, and a high literacy rate is a necessity for prosperity. Workers need to be able to read and write for so many obvious reasons, that I won't bother to list them here. The school construction/reconstruction boom in Afghanistan is a promising development.

Education in Afghanistan is a barrier to economic development but is becoming less so. In 2012, there were 8.2 million students in Afghanistan, a country about a little over 26 million people, according to the country's Ministry of Education.

In 2012, there are 4000 schools under construction. School enrollment is lower for females and tends to be lower in rural areas. Still, about 40% of school children don't have classrooms.

The nation's low per capita income, and low GDP, can increase regardless of literacy rates, but clearly improvements in literacy will help the individuals and the country. Educated voters will tend to make better decisions. Literate voters will find it much easier to get reliable information on the nation's political and economic challenges, and it would be easier to learn about the candidates. That fully literate workers and entrepreneurs are better equipped for success is so obvious that no real explanation is needed. Educated citizens will be able to produce more and earn more.

Most discussion of education in Afghanistan focuses on children, or girls in particular. This might lead one to ignore the value of adult education in a country where most of the adult population is illiterate. Basic education in reading, writing, and math will equip adults to perform better on the job and to make better decisions when they can vote.

Should adult literacy education get more attention in Afghanistan's economic development planning? What is being done now? More on those two questions in the next couple of posts. My work schedule demands that I sign off at this point.

A Change of Direction

Well, I do have lots of work to do now. Sociology for social activism is not supposed to be a dry and academic topic. With that in mind I want to take the blog in a new, more practical direction. I recently started blogging for an organization called Film Annex. They are using social media to support economic development and education in Afghanistan. The model takes a bit of explaining, so I will just ask you to go and check their Web site for the details. I am blogging there on education and economic development in Afghanistan. The body of this post is my first blog entry for their site.

What do you think?

The nation of Afghanistan is coming out of a long period of conflict and oppression that began with the Taliban takeover of the country after the Soviet Union withdrew.  An ongoing insurgency just adds to the problems of promoting education and economic development.

The country’s efforts to build a stable economy and society continue, with much help from outside businesses, governments, nonprofits, and the United Nations of course. This post and several more focus on the use of business to promote economic development and education in Afghanistan.

First, I feel compelled to offer a few statistics that illustrate the state of the country today. These statistics will give a better sense of how far Afghanistan can go, and some of them will be referenced again and again in this blog.

Literacy Rate = 13% (among women; higher among men)

Unemployment Rate = 35% in 2009

Poverty Rate = 36% in 2009

Population = about 30,400,000 in 2012, give or take a few hundred thousand

Mobile Phones = 5.4 million in 2008

Trends are important to understand, so I will revisit these stats in future posts, to provide a sense of where the country is going, for better or worse.

The country does have many schools, including some colleges and universities. The American University of Afghanistan is the newest.  Building schools with modern facilities should be an ongoing priority. That’s probably a suggestion any development expert would agree with regarding development in any poor country.  The exact model to use for these schools might not be the same everywhere, but the same issue of funding these schools remains.

Advertising and marketing work in business by generating revenue that can pay the bills and fund future expansion. Various business tactics could be used to fund education in Afghanistan as well. Advertising presented to patrons of internet cafes, to people in university computer labs, or to mobile phone users could generate revenue to fund school construction, school reconstruction, and other economic development initiatives.

Economic development assistance and aid for education are coming from the United Nations and from some western NGOs. Businesses are trying various models to promote economic development and create education opportunities. The Film Annex is funding an Afghanistan Development Initiative that has a long-term goal of providing Web-connected classrooms for 160,000.

Future posts will have more information on that effort, and other projects aimed at using business and social media to provide the funds for schools, businesses, and innovation inside Afghanistan.