Aga Khan Education Service, Afghanistan

The Aga Khan Education Service (AKES), Afghanistan has been operating since 2004. It delivers non-formal education programmes run by local staff in Badakhshan, Baghlan, Balkh, Kabul, Bamyan, Kunduz and Samangan, often in remote villages. These serve over 33,000 students.

The 74 pre-primary units, for three-six-year-olds, offer a programme based on the internationally recognised HighScope preschool curriculum. Pre-primary teachers also provide support by phone to a small group of parents, in collaboration with the telecommunications provider Roshan. This began as a response to the COVID-19 closures, when AKES, Afghanistan implemented a learning programme by phone. In this way AKES, Afghanistan could continue to offer families learning and support for ECD, pre-primary and supplementary education programmes.

AKES, Afghanistan offers Supplementary Education Programmes for primary and secondary students aged seven or older. These cover tutorial assistance in English, mathematics and science to supplement what is learnt in school, and Kankor (university entrance) examination preparation.

Continuing Education programmes in ICT and English help students aged 16 and over to improve their employability and access to higher education. ICT programmes include the internationally accredited International Computer Driving License (ICDL) certification for ICT (AKES, Afghanistan is an accredited ICDL testing and learning centre). The English programme follows the Oxford and Cambridge English curriculum.

Improving Schools

To help formerly out-of-school children adapt to their new classroom learning environments, AKES, Afghanistan provides a supplementary education programme focusing on Dari, English, mathematics and science.

Improving Adolescents’ Lives in Afghanistan

Adolescents in Afghanistan often have limited opportunities to acquire and share knowledge and to actively participate in decision-making processes. AKF, World Vision and AEPO implemented a programme from 2017 to 2020 to increase the autonomy of adolescents.

The programme worked with adolescents, families, communities, decision makers and public authorities, supporting governmental priorities. AKF formed and ran 176 multi-purpose adolescent groups, covering life skills, self-expression, sports, arts and training to become peer educators. Outputs included 890 radio dramas, 26 educational feature programmes and the design and distribution of 32,000 magazines covering issues important to adolescents. AKF also trained and mentored 35,970 influential community leaders, over half of them women, on child rights, gender and the importance of girls’ education.

Improving Schools

AKF supports interventions at the school, district, provincial and national levels to strengthen academic supervision and social mobilisation, promote professional development of teachers and school management committees and improve learning environments. More than 233,000 students and 7,000 teachers and school heads currently benefit from these education activities.

Working directly with the local education authorities at both the provincial and district levels, AKF supported over 800 schools and learning spaces in 2021. Community classes provide primary education for pupils who are not able to attend government schools due to distance or the lack of proper roads and transport. Since 2003, 80 percent of formerly out-of-school children of the relevant age have gained access to primary education as a result of AKF’s support of community-based education and ongoing assistance to government schools.

To help formerly out-of-school children adapt to their new classroom learning environments, AKES provides a supplementary education programme focusing on Dari, English, maths and science.

Overall, 94 percent of children from AKF-supported primary schools progress to secondary school. This demonstrates that the quality of education is improving, that access to school facilities is improving and that communities are taking a growing interest in education for their children.

Training Teachers

To help improve the classroom environment and student achievements, AKF provides in-service teacher training and mentoring focused on child-centred learning. To date, it has provided training and support to over 7,000 teachers and educators (40 percent female). Parent-teacher-student associations are established in all AKF-supported schools in order to involve parents and the community more closely in their children's education. Such involvement is essential to ensure the sustainability of educational improvements.

Encouraging Wider Engagement

School management committees are also established to help improve the day-to-day functioning of AKF-supported schools. To date, over 500 parent-teacher-student associations, school-student associations and school management committees have been established and trained in government schools, community-based classes and pre-schools, ensuring community involvement in all schools supported by AKF.

A lack of active support for schools by some communities is an ongoing problem in Afghanistan. Estimates based on data from field visits indicate that about half of communities are actively engaged in supporting and running their schools, and promoting school enrolment and attendance, as well as assisting in areas of child protection such as preventing early marriages. At the district and provincial levels, AKF has provided training and support to all school inspectors and supervisors in the 28 districts covered by the education programme, improving their ability to assist schools effectively. In addition, AKD has been working to raise faculty capacity and teaching quality at teacher training colleges (TTCs) and satellite TTCs.

At the national level, AKF engaged with the various directorates of the Ministry of Education, for policy dialogue and influence, and capacity development. Efforts and participation in policy dialogue led the government to recognise the community-based primary classrooms as alternative education provision and include these classes within the National Education Strategic Plan III (2015-2020).

Learning for the Future

AKF is leading Schools2030, a global 10-year participatory action research and learning improvement programme based in 1,000 government schools across 10 countries, including Afghanistan. Using the principles of human-centred design and focusing on the key transition years of ages five, 10 and 15, Schools2030 seeks to annually generate 1,000 locally-rooted education solutions that can inform and transform systems-level approaches for improving holistic learning outcomes for all learners. The initiative also includes early childhood development through a pre-primary cohort and interventions to equip young people with employable skills. Find out more