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24 Oct 2019 - 18:16
author avatar
24 Oct 2019 - 18:16

In the past eighteen years, the Ministry of Education (MoE) has sought to simply increase the number of school students, but quality education has been sidelined. People are not satisfied with the low quality education, especially at schools.

A recent study shows that majority of school graduates perform poorly in essential subjects such as language, communication, mathematics, etc. Such condition requires the MoE to fully focus on prioritizing the quality education.

Education Practitioners are seeking to develop new platforms to overcome the issue of low quality education in the country on the basis of certain social and cultural context. This article will point out some significant factors about the promotion of education level.

First, the MoE have to figure out Afghanistan are members of International Assessment Associations, however, Afghan MoE has been unintentionally isolated from the international measurements and quality assurance participation. At present, Afghanistan’s secondary education needs to be involved at least in one of the international assessment associations for promoting education at schools.

Second, the MoE leadership and practitioners should activate the newly established National Assessment Center for measuring level of education. By means of Active National Assessment Center, students’ specific skills as well as their performances and future role in the society will be evaluated periodically. In other word, the ANAC will figure out the talents, gaps, intellectual development inabilities, and children with special needs and individual differences in learning. Then, the ANAC will unfold the gaps and problems based on its findings. On the other hand, it will pave the ground for constructive competitions among students in different provinces. Such assessments will be conducive for better improvement of education quality. The empirical certain context of Japan is likely to be helpful for Afghanistan structural or operational adaptation. 

Third, the General Directorate of Curriculum Development and Compiling of Textbooks is required to conduct national curriculum assessment across the country and make plan for finding out important instructional, collective, and individual needs. This process will improve the quality much better.

Generally, assessment program has been practiced neither in MoE nor in General Directorate Curriculum Development so far. It is a big challenge and a new lesson for academic members in GDCD to learn.

The UNESCO consultation collected data experience in 2018 has not been repeated any more. Afghanistan has its own existing curriculum and before making new framework, we have to know the current curriculum challenges and gaps. Now, it is the responsibility of GDCD to assess the existing curriculum and figure out the new requirements for making new curriculum framework and guidelines accordingly.

Fourth, designing or planning new capacity building program is indispensable for training veteran, aged, academic, professional instructors for fostering significant professional skills. That way, academic personality and pedagogical skills are the most important factors, if it is developed in a well-defined manner, and will affect students’ learning, performances, and outputs. Studies show that skilled teachers improve the education quality by designing meaningful activities and communications, which result in interaction. However, General Directorate of Teacher Education have not been successful in teacher-training programs conducted in the past eighteen years throughout the country.

Fifth, the MoE leadership should be committed to promoting education and providing rich educational environment such as library, laboratory, tool kits (for all subjects), and so on.

Sixth, increasing the salary of teachers and staff of educational sectors has direct effect on the promotion of education level. By being paid decently, they will be motivated in curriculum designing and development, researching, teaching, well-designing instructional materials, class activities, real world tasks and making concrete supplementary materials. Teachers, in particular, are in need of more financial and spiritual supports. Now teachers are assessed based on the amount of money they are paid in our country, which reflects a harsh reality in our society. MoE and Ministry of Finance should support teachers so that they could keenly invest their time promoting education level in the country.

The aforementioned facts are the key factors for promoting education in the country. However, implementing the said issues are not that easy. It will need heavy financial expenses to support quality education. It is hoped that the MoE will pay due attention to embedding and recruiting the right manpower in the right room. The MoE should be committed to its decade of education plan and do not let it be mere words rather than action.  

View expressed in this article are of the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Pajhwok’s editorial policy.

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The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect Pajhwok's editorial policy.

Author's brief introduction

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Amin Danish is an academic and professional member of general directorate of curriculum development and compiling of textbooks. He can be reached at [email protected]

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