Haji Abdul Ghayom Ghosi the the principle of Qowaye Chahr Zerehdar school, here is an interview with him about Afghanistan educational system.
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Can you talk about the school's history?
This school is 9 kilometer far away from the city and located near to the village Isaq Sulaiman. It was established in 1983 with four classrooms and around 200 students. Right now we have around 2250 female students, 45 teachers and around 45 classes.
It has two main buildings, the new one is just established by a Japanese platform called NICCO in 2011. There are two shifts, morning shift is for girls and evening for boys. We have graduated students in this schools for five terms.
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The steps you took to get to where you are now?
It was really difficult for people more than twenty years ago to think about building schools in Afghanistan and let children specially girls to go to school. Qowaye chahar school was established first by three people: Haji Abdul Salam, Haji Ghavamodin and myself.
For the first time we tried to teach students in mosque near the village but meanwhile the number of students increased more, we had to find another place with more spaces. A piece of land was gifted by one of the villagers to build school there, therefore we officially started our work on that time.
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What do you think about the education system in Afghanistan? How can it be improved?
One of the big challenges which we have in our educational system is the lack of expert teacher in their own field of studies specially in remote areas like villages. Another main problem is that students study all subjects in general, there is not any classification of subjects for students to choose their own interested subjects later on.
Ministry of Education has to provide a proper plan for the schools in Afghanistan because after several decades of war we did not follow any appropriate educational system, however it make the student's basis for higher education afterwards, therefore they have to design a standard curriculum to improve educational process in schools.
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What do you think about the Internet classrooms Film Annex has been building in Afghan schools?
It is really helpful and effective for students while they are at school and they do not access to Internet at home. By learning computer a different window will open to their life and they will introduce to a new world with lots of ideas.
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What else would you want to be built in Afghan schools in addition to the Internet classrooms? What do the kids need?
Actually the main problem which we have faced is the lack of space in our school, we have more than 2000 students but there are just 45 small classrooms which is not enough for us. To have another building will decrease our problems and even we can have library for students to study and laboratories to do their practical works although for library and laboratory we need extra facilities as well.
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Do you use social media? If so, what for?
Yes , I use TV, newspapers and radio for making myself update but unfortunately I do not use computer and Internet to get more information.
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Are there any international exchange programs that students can benefit from at the school you teach? If yes, can you talk about these programs?
No, we did not have the chance to have this opportunity
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Do you work with any institutions that provide scholarships to those students who are financially in need?
No, but if there is some who are interested to help us they are most welcome to our school
