Education in rural Afghanistan: scenes from a learning patchwork

Removing our shoes at the entrance to the two-room building, we hear the sound of a young girl’s voice, reverential but light, as if from a music box.

Make not the revelations of Allah a laughingstock,
but remember Allah’s grace upon you
and that which He hath revealed unto you
of the Scripture and of wisdom,
whereby He doth exhort you.

As we follow the accented Arabic into the next room, the child in the second row finishes her recitation without stumbling, drawing cheerful applause from her 30-or-so classmates, sat upon the floor.

This is an Accelerated Learning Class (ALC), hosted in a private residence on the outskirts of Firuzkoh, in the mountainous central province of Ghor. Since 2021, girls aged nine to fifteen – unable to access education in their early years – have gathered here daily, even through school holidays, to catch up. The community itself proposed the idea to local authorities, and World Vision was honoured to establish and resource the class.

Fourteen-year-old Marjan* explains what this chance means to her:

“When I came to this class for the first time, I was very excited because it was my first experience with learning... In our village, many girls lack access to education and are involved in different kinds of work.”

She continues, “If girls are educated, they can raise an informed generation. Parents can’t teach us everything if they themselves haven’t received education… My dream is to become a doctor because people in our area face many difficulties. Though we have hospitals and medicine, we don’t have experienced doctors to help people. That’s why I want to become a doctor — to serve my people. I believe education is more valuable than anything.”

"My dream is to become a doctor." Marjan, age 14.

Marjan’s words reflect the reality that millions of children in Afghanistan face. Access to primary education is limited not only by policy but by infrastructure gaps, and by poverty that pushes children — especially girls — into income-generating work or early marriage. Approximately 7.8 million Afghan children are out of school, a figure being swollen by the arrival of over two million returnees from Iran and Pakistan. Meanwhile, an estimated 2.2 million girls are excluded from secondary education by official restrictions.

That’s what makes this class so striking: older girls learning together, catching up on what they’ve missed. Admittedly, if the ban on secondary education persists, it’s unclear how Marjan will pursue her dream of becoming a doctor, but without this ALC, even the first step towards that destination would be impossible.

An Uncertain Future

Alternative, community-based education models such as this ALC played a key role in the growth of education in Afghanistan between 2001 to 2021. Though a small proportion of children enter school at seven and continue without interruption, many rely on village religious schools, informal tutoring, or community classes. In 2001 only one million Afghan children had access to education and girls were largely excluded. By 2020 more than 9.5 million children accessed education, 40% of them girls. Such provision receives warm buy-in from communities, especially in remote areas where distance from formal schools is the main barrier of access to education. It’s a fragile but vital patchwork.

Marjan recognises this:

“If this class hadn’t been available, we might have studied in schools which offer only religious education. But here, we receive both religious and general education. There are topics we never knew about — for example, microbes. Many people don’t know what microbes are unless they study. This is the benefit of education: it helps us understand harmful things around us.”

Provision like this remains desperately needed — but it is increasingly vulnerable.

Many international governments hesitate to support education in Afghanistan due to the ban on girls’ secondary schooling, and yet a lack of resources for alternative learning models is making access to education even harder for excluded girls, not easier.

Afghan authorities, meanwhile, envision a standardised education system in place of the patchwork of classes that currently prevails, and highlight the lack of school buildings as the main problem. As the General Education Director for Ghor tells me in Firuzkoh, “You cannot support education in Afghanistan without building schools. No girls are barred from education up to Grade Six.”

For sure, there is a need to expand and rehabilitate school infrastructure, much of which has been damaged or lost over four decades of conflict. Across Afghanistan, 30% of schools lack any dedicated building, 77% lack electricity, 79% lack adequate hand washing facilities, 21% conduct all classes in tents.

But this is not simply an argument for more school building. Alternative community-based models reached around 879,018 students in 2023, 60% of whom were girls. It will take years to address the shortcomings in education infrastructure, and ending alternative learning models while this persists will leave many with no access to any learning whatsoever. With international focus on secondary education, and in-country leadership driving single-mindedly towards standardisation, the risks of more children being excluded from primary learning are many.

There is a ready case study for this kind of rapid transition with unintended consequences. In 2023, authorities required all international NGOs to transfer their education projects to local actors. In some cases, this increased local ownership – as with Marjan’s class. World Vision handed oversight of this ALC to a local partner, capacitated through years of partnership.

But elsewhere, the drive for localisation outpaced local capacity — and children lost access to education.

A short drive away, within Firuzkoh, this is vividly demonstrated.

I enter a mudbrick building with bare walls – desolate and abandoned. But it was not always this way.

As we sit together on the floor, community elder Nuraddin*, tells me, “Previously, there was a class here where our children studied.” Indicating to a woman to his left, he continues, “This lady was the teacher. It was a good class – the children were both engaged and learning well.”

The teacher in question, Armineh*, speaks fondly, and sadly, of her past as an educator. “I always wanted to be a teacher – it was my dream. I worked as a teacher for 17 years... When World Vision supported the classes everything was well-provided, our students became very active and capable.”

In this instance, however, local actors were not able to sustain the class for long after the exclusion of international actors was imposed. Armineh continues, “Due to poverty and hardship, children can’t attend school [elsewhere]. Instead they are forced to carry out hard labour, pushing carts in the marketplace. Since the class ended we haven’t heard much about our former pupils.”

Nuraddin adds, “As you can see, even small children are out collecting firewood. Some children are selling cucumbers and so on.

"Since the class closed, the community has become more scattered."
Armineh, former teacher.

“If a class is created here," offers Armineh, "everyone will participate. I’ve been a teacher for 17 years, ten of those years in this area, and I know people’s financial challenges. Many can’t afford private courses… People used to attend meetings and consult with us. Since the class closed, the community has become more scattered and the children are now lost without a purpose.”

I take the chance to speak to girls who had previously attended these classes. 15-year-old Zorawar* tells me, “We had hopes of becoming someone in the future, of achieving something — but when this class was closed, we were heartbroken and have been staying at home ever since… I now help my mother with household chores and also do sewing work."

Immediately outside Firuzkoh, the roads turn from asphalt to dust. In these rural districts, barriers to education are compounded by access challenges, food insecurity, and a lack of clean water and healthcare services.

After a few hours traversing these dirt tracks, we find a pretty village built around a small stream, and enter a classroom where younger boys and girls are learning together.

Twelve-year-old Abdurrahman* tells me:

“If I hadn’t attended this class and studied, I would have been doing housework and would have missed out on education. I would have been wandering the streets and herding sheep instead, and we would not understand anything.”

Sure enough, by the time we leave the class, a gaggle of children – and some of their livestock – have gathered out of curiosity.

Community leader Anwaruddin* tells us, “One of our main problems is the lack of a school in the village. At the moment, there is only this one class supported by a local NGO, where 34 children are studying. However, more than 40 others remain without education and without a clear future. We do not have the financial means to hire a teacher for them, so they continue to live without direction or access to education. Instead of going to school, they are herding cows and sheep.”

For Anwaruddin, education is one of many challenges rural communities face. “One essential need is access to clean drinking water. Right now, we don’t have proper water for ourselves or our children. There’s an open spring in the village that both people and animals use, and it’s unsafe. Our children get sick, and we must take them to clinics, though people here are economically struggling.”

However, he pivots back towards education needs, apparently seeing a lack of access to water and education as part of the same interwoven experience of deprivation. “Both parents and children are eager and send their children daily. However, those whose children are left out of school are very worried. We request partner organisations to establish a new educational class so the remaining children can also access their right to education.”

Children cannot wait

While solutions to Afghanistan's education challenges are undoubtedly complex, the essential lesson from this fractured yet vibrant landscape may be simple: decision-makers must begin from where we are, not from where we wish we were.

Standardisation is a worthy goal. Sound infrastructure is vital. But without massive investment, the need for ALCs, community-based classes, and early years learning will persist for years. Testimonies from children like Marjan, teachers like Armineh, and elders like Anwaruddin all make one thing clear:

these forms of education must be resourced and expanded - not shut down.

And while that massive investment is unlikely from the international community for as long as most girls are excluded from secondary education, there is much that can be achieved here and now with international support for primary and early years learning.  

In one rural community, the passion for education – specifically girls’ education – is again infectious. As I speak to Hussein*, a community elder at the site of a proposed school building, the evening sun sets behind the nearby mountains, and young volleyball players set their game aside to come and talk to us. Hussein tells us, “The economic situation is poor, and progress depends upon development. If we improve infrastructure, the economy and education will both flourish. Infrastructure like schools and water networks are essential — our water is often contaminated with silt for half the year. Clean water would solve many issues, particularly for women and girls. But people are striving to become educated. Doctors, engineers, and professionals succeed through education — that’s why schools are critical.”

Despite the inclement policy environment, the community has allocated land for a girls' school. Every household contributed financially, an international donor has committed, and World Vision is beginning the process of surveying and building.

Hussein is infectiously enthusiastic about education, and perhaps understandably, impatient to see results.

And perhaps he is right to be impatient. Children in Afghanistan cannot wait for ideal solutions. They need urgent support today. Local and international decision-makers must work with what exists: a flawed but diverse educational patchwork that — if resourced — can deliver dignity, opportunity, and hope to millions of children: girls and boys.