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Summary: Taliban insurgents are attacking fewer schools, easing the way for boys and girls to attend in larger numbers, even in largely insecure areas of the country, Afghan education officials say.
[9 June 2011] - Since March 21, the beginning the Afghan calendar year, education officials have recorded 20 school-related attacks, said Gul Agha Ahmadi, a spokesman for the Ministry of Education. Attacks can include the burning of schoolhouses, kidnappings, threats, forced school closings and the killing or injuring of students or teachers. One headmaster has been killed so far. While still gloomy, the numbers are down to an average of about eight a month, less than half the monthly average recorded by the ministry the previous two years. A United Nations-led task force on children and armed conflict recorded an average of nearly 50 attacks a month the previous two years, reflecting starkly different methods of reporting. Task force officials could not verify the numbers reported by the ministry since March, but Unicef, a task force member, confirmed that attacks were down this year, without providing specific numbers. Interviews with school administrators in some of the most volatile parts of the country also indicate a considerable decline. Officials and aid groups say it is too soon to know whether the decrease is a signal of a permanent shift. But the drop is a hopeful sign as the United States and Afghanistan explore peace talks with the Taliban, and may show an effort on the part of the insurgents to portray a more moderate image as those talks continue, even as violence has escalated across the country. What accounts for the decrease — whether improved security, a shift in Taliban philosophy or some combination of factors — is a matter of debate. Mullah Muhammad Omar, the spiritual leader of the Taliban, is believed to have issued a decree in March forbidding his fighters to attack schools and intimidate schoolchildren. Education Ministry officials and aid groups say they welcome the decree, though none of them have ever actually seen it. Ghulam Farooq Wardak, the minister of education, credits efforts to convince communities, their elders and their religious leaders that education is vital to the country’s future. “These are arguments that have gained a lot of momentum within the communities,” he said. “And the communities are in a very strong position to argue with those who are behind the closing of the schools.” A Taliban spokesman could not be reached for comment. Mullah Omar has supposedly issued such edicts in the past, but they appear to have gone ignored, perhaps signaling a disconnect among the far-flung and loosely affiliated insurgent groups that commonly fall under the umbrella term of the Taliban. Child protection advocates are reacting cautiously to the fall-off in attacks, because while the numbers may be down, the attacks have not stopped. Last month, a school principal was killed just outside of Kabul, apparently for spurning insurgent demands to stop teaching girls. Some 400 schools, meanwhile, remain closed for security reasons, mainly in the southern Pashtun belt stretching from Helmand Province through Kandahar and up to Paktika Province, according to the Education Ministry. Peter Crowley, the country representative for Unicef, which monitors school attacks, said that while there were initial indications of a decrease, “it is too early to describe this as a trend.” About 8.3 million children — nearly 40 percent of them girls — were enrolled this year, up from 7.6 million last year, officials said. But various estimates show more than 4 million school-age children still not in classrooms for a variety of economic, social and security reasons. Even before Mullah Omar was reported to have made his March decree, insurgents were singling out fewer schools and sending out fewer “night letters,” the threatening notices the Taliban often paste to school doors ordering the schools closed or dictating the curriculum, officials said. “Since the inception of the school year we have not had any threats or attacks,” said Muhammad Qasam Popal, provincial director of education in the southern province of Oruzgan. The school year begins in September. The apparent cease-fire on schools, if there is one, has allowed officials there to reopen schools in volatile districts like Shahid Ehsas, Gizab and Dehrawoot, Mr. Qasam said. In Helmand Province, one of the most violent in the country, people are now donating land to build schools, buoyed by the belief that the Taliban will not object, said Muhammad Naseem Safai, director of the Helmand Education Department. "We've opened 50 new schools across Helmand this school year, especially in those volatile districts," he said. Twenty of the schools were built on donated land, he added. Parents are also worrying less. “When I heard about this announcement I felt relieved, really relieved,” said Khali Ahmad, who owns a stationery shop in Kandahar and has two sons and a daughter in school. “The danger and threats I felt for my children in school were removed from my mind at once.” Sayed Ruhullah Agha, provincial deputy for education for Kandahar Province, said that sentiment was felt across the province. “It actually had a positive effect throughout the Kandahar population,” Mr. Agha said. “Since issuing the decree, we haven’t experienced any attacks against schools, like burning them down or bombing them.” The decrease in attacks is notable in Kandahar, which had become notorious for attacks on schools, and girls’ schools in particular. One of the most horrific happened on Nov. 12, 2008, when men on motorcycles sprayed girls and teachers with acid as they walked to a girls’ school. The men hit 11 girls and 4 teachers, sending 6 to the hospital and leaving many of them with lifelong scars. Banning girls from school was one of the more infamous symbols of the Taliban’s rule from 1996 to 2001. More recently, thousands of young men waving Taliban flags and shouting slogans honoring Mullah Omar rampaged through Kandahar. The protests, in early April, erupted after a Florida pastor burned a Koran, but among the buildings the rioters singled out was the Zarghona Ana High School For Girls, setting it ablaze while the students hid in the bathroom. And on Wednesday, about 30 men claiming to be arbeki, a traditional form of a village defense force, stormed a school for girls in the northern city of Kunduz, assaulting the headmaster and the principal with the butts of their rifles, said Mohammad Zahir Nazam, head of the Kunduz Education Department. Both men were left in a coma, Mr. Nazam said. But neither this attack nor the Kandahar riot could be strictly attributed to the Taliban. Mr. Nazam said the attackers in Kunduz were trying to collect taxes from residents when the headmaster and the principal objected, prompting the militia group to attack them. Whether the Taliban has slowed its attacks out of consideration of the peace process or in an effort to fortify support among the population is an open question. Of one thing Mr. Ahmadi, the ministry spokesman, feels certain: “If the Taliban wants to close a school in this country, they can do it,” he said. “But they are not doing it, and it proves they don’t want to.”