School Year Kicks Off to Record Number of Students
The Afghan academic year kicked off on March 5, with an additional 1 million students slated to attend schools throughout Afghanistan. In a bell-ringing ceremony attended by President Hamid Karzai, Minister of Education Farouq Wardak announced that 7.2 million children would attend school in 2009 -- up from 6.2 million in 2008 -- and more than 2,000 additional schools had been built to house classes.
Education in Afghanistan has been one of the country's most visible successes in recent years. While only 1 million boys and no girls attended school during the reign of the Taliban, 5.7 million children -- 35 percent of them girls -- took advantage of educational opportunities in 2007, with that number rising every year since. According to a recent poll conducted by ABC and BBC, 77 percent of Afghans say they are pleased with the education system. Challenges still remain, though, with many schools being closed for security reasons and literacy rates still remaining among the lowest in the world.
