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.
No comments:
Post a Comment