Afghanistan

Over the past two decades, until 2021, Afghanistan saw significant improvements in access to education, yet gaps in services remained, including a lack of qualified (female) teachers. Even prior to the current humanitarian crisis, an estimated 4.2 million children were not enrolled in school, 60 per cent of them girls. Rural areas of the country in particular lacked adequate infrastructure and educational materials. Conflict, large-scale population displacement, and growing inequalities in terms of access have further exacerbated the situation, especially for girls, children with disabilities, and ethnic and religious minorities.

In 2020, education was further disrupted by the closure of education facilities for several months to combat the spread of COVID-19. The country’s COVID-19 response plan prioritized alternative approaches to classroom-based learning through self-learning, distance learning and small-group learning.

Despite earlier assurances that all schools in Afghanistan would re-open again, the Taliban in March 2022 announced that girls’ secondary schools were to remain closed indefinitely, effectively barring hundreds of thousands of adolescent girls from realising their talents and fulfilling their dreams.

To help address the education crisis, ECW works with a wide range of partners through an extended and expanded Multi-Year Resilience Programme (MYRP) which covers 14 provinces. Specifically, ECW works to expand access to non-formal education, especially for adolescent girls; promote continuity in learning by facilitating the transition to hub schools; support teacher training; improve monitoring systems; and establish child protection and safeguarding measures in communities. ECW’s support also focuses on ensuring access to mental health and psychosocial services and the physical well-being of children, with a particular focus on children with disabilities.