Editor in Chief: Moh. Reza Huwaida Thursday, March 28th, 2024

Disregarding Education has Made us Suffer!

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Disregarding Education has Made us Suffer!

"To me, nothing is more inspirational than seeing the innocent smiles of my students around the school. They come to school every day to learn a single letter or digit with excitement. Just as these individual characters contribute to making a perfect student, the often trivial contributions of billions of people throughout the history has made the world that we live in. Similarly, it inspires me to believe that my work, even if small, has contributed to the betterment of my community", said the Azizullah better known as Aziz Ruyesh, the chairperson of Merefat High School on the eve of award winning ceremony of Global Teacher Prize.

This is indeed a great win by an individual who earned us fame and cognition, and is worthy of grand deal of appreciation. Passing through severe ups and down since its creation, Merafat High School, always tried outperforming other schools in every aspect of human learning that helped establishing its very recognition far and wide equally in the country and abroad. In 2014 Marefat High School had 4000 students, 44% of which were girls. Of its 450 graduates,148 pursued their studies in high schools and universities abroad that year. The school is registered as a tax-exempt, nonprofit educational institution and provides financial aid to over 400 of its students each year.

This is the right time we transform an individual’s effort into collective goal in the pursuit of excellence. Undoubtedly, education inflicts enormous impact on overall progress of a nation. The nation’s development is anchored on the foundation of skilled based education that never falls behind in the hunt for collective advancement. Sound economy provides firm basis for vibrant success, pulled off through countless efforts exercised to educate the masses. This is affirmed by renowned economist and Nobel Laureate Robert Solow who described the growth of national income as having three sources: increases in the stock of physical capital (machines and buildings that are used to produce goods and services), increases in the size of the labor force, and a residual representing all other factors. This residual contributed considerably more to per capita growth than the increase in the capital stock. This is called "neoclassical" or "exogenous growth". It describes the immediate impact of increasing the amount of education per worker by 10 percent would be to increase GDP by only about 4 to 5 percent. Also, in the type of model used in those studies an increase in the rate of investment leads to an increase in the level of GDP.

Education is one of the necessities of the humans and, therefore, a prime responsibility and obligation of the states and governments to impose it without any regional or class discrimination. Many states like that of ours, myopically perceive the fate of nation guided by foreign investments or donations which is unarguable fallacy. It is the right time, to realize, education economy can duly carry us along the avenues of long-lasting success. Without giving education first priority we can’t keep pace with technological, innovative and scientific advancement the world has attained. The education itself is a proof to the progressiveness and development of the nations. The most developed nations in the worlds have most developed and best education systems while, the underdeveloped, struggling ones and one with the bad economy and global ranks have the bad education systems when compared to the developed ones.

Pearson recently, released their global report on education. This report takes a look at major factors in education, such as expenditure per student, GDP, graduation rates, etc. The finding of report asserts, East Asian nations continue to outperform others. South Korea tops the rankings, followed by Japan (2nd) etc. All these countries’ education systems prize effort above inherited ‘smartness’, have clear learning outcomes and goalposts, and have a strong culture of accountability and engagement among a broad community of stakeholders.

It’s indeed surprising to know that the children in South Korea attend school often seven-day a week and handsome sum of budget is allocated for education. The national education budget estimated last year was $11,300,000,000. The literacy rate is total 97.9% out of which males are sharing 99.2% and 96.6% of females. Korea is one of potential economy of the world and is the member of Organization of Economic Co-operation Development (OECD) and the G-20 major economy. Korea’s economic development and prosperity is a proof to its development and innovation in education.

Japan, despite investing in childhood education is compromised in rankings stands second. Japan is the member of G-8 giant economies and is estimated to be 3rd largest economy. The Japanese have dominated in the world from the last three-quarters. The technology-based educational structure has provided the nation with some great figures in the knowledge and insight. The strong education has made the country rank in top numbers among the world’s strongest economies. The aforesaid two states did their best to bring true the real dream of their success.

On the contrary, the state of education is aggravated in this piece of land. By 2013 there were 10.5 million out of 27.5 million population attending schools in Afghanistan. About 35% of its population is unemployed and 36% live below the national poverty line, suffering from shortages of housing, clean drinking water, and electricity.  On United Nations' Human Development Index Afghanistan ranks 175th with nation's GDP stands at about $34 billion. This is far less than Japan’s spending on education.

According to data available on site of ministry of education; over 5000 schools are without usable buildings, boundary walls, safe drinking water or sanitation facilities; 90% of qualified female teachers are located in the nine major urban centers (Kabul, Herat, Nangrahar, Mazar, Badakhshan, Takhar, Baghlan, Jozjan and Faryab); no female students enrolled in grades 10-12 in 200 of 412 urban and rural districts; 453 schools are still closed or have been damaged in the past two years, resulting in 300,000 students deprived of schooling; and, some 11 million adults remain illiterate.

The worries do not end here, in fact the teacher equally worst affected by dysfunctional education. The information available confirms, 73% of teachers lack the minimum required qualification of grade 14 graduation and are in need of professional development; over 5,000 of Educational Institutions do not have usable buildings which has a direct impact on quality of education. This is the worst state of affairs when the incumbent government is silent on the declining effectiveness of educational system and its immediate negative effect on the holistic rise of a nation. We need our government turn Azizullah to avert the disgruntled fate of afghan nation

Asmatyari is a permanent writer of Daily Outlook Afghanistan. He can be reached at asmatyar@gmail.com.

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