Qunduz Girls Get Back to School and Dream of University
April 5, 2002
The Frontier Post

QUNDUZ (APP): Young girls in Qunduz, who for several years could only take classes in secret, are back at school, sitting cross-legged on the ground, and dreaming of attending university. In the humble buildings of the Fatemah Zahra school, the hallways ring with the sing-song recitation of the alphabet and multiplication tables.

In each of the 16 rooms a few dozen girls attend courses for three hours daily. The rooms are basic and plain — nothing on the walls save a blackboard.

The little girls, dressed in black and their heads covered with white scarves, sit cross-legged on a canvas to protect them from the cold cement floor. "They are learning math, Dari , the Qur'an, coloring and handwriting," said the female director of the school, Mahbooba.

Majan, 11, is already looking to the future. "I like studying. I would like to go to a university in America — I don't know where it is though."

"The most difficult thing is not the lack of means, but of space," bemoaned Mahbooba, gesturing at a courtyard where at least 200 school children aged between seven and 12, sat with the notebooks on their knees.

The main school building was previously occupied by the Taleban, the former rulers in Afghanistan. During the five years of their rule, due to an obscure interpretation of the Qur'an, it was forbidden for girls to go to school or to get an education.

And in northern Qunduz, a Taleban fiefdom, the rule was vigorously applied. Inside the school grounds stands the only tangible remnant of their rule, an untouched building that could easily be mistaken for a sport hall.

"It was their mosque," explained Mahbooba opening the door into a large room painted with verses from the Qur'an. "We tried to get it back, but a mullah came and told us that it wasn't the right thing to do." It has stood empty ever since.

In the meantime, girls between seven and 18 attend in shifts — the younger pupils coming in the morning and the older in the afternoon, with three hours of studies for each.

The school is free and the teachers are volunteers, as it was under the Taleban, when the most courageous gave lessons in secret and at home. "In that period one risked the whip if one was caught teaching.
Today we don't know how much we will be paid" and even less, when money will arrive, said one young teacher, Fahimah. But "we work because the children haven't had any education in a long time." She had stayed cloistered at home for so long that she enjoys the freedom of the female-only environment of the school, where she can let her hair down and wear make-up.

Shortly before 9:00 am the girls head for school carrying white plastic satchels bearing the name of UNICEF, which also supplies the books for the classes.

"Girls and the boys must go back to school," declared a banner bearing UNICEF's emblem as it hung near a police sentry post at the main roundabout in the city.

The appeal has been heard, said Mousliman, the director of the Khadiga Tol Kobra girls' school, "the most reputable in the region", she boasted.

"We receive new students every day, in total 2,700 between seven and 18-years old," she said. The atmosphere at the school is studious, and the cement floors are always
cold. In a poll taken at the school, half say they want to become doctors.

Rhona, 14, is an exception. "I want to be a construction engineer to help reconstruct the country. I will study that at the University of Mazar-i-Sharif," she said firmly.

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