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.