New School Facilities Enhance Quality of Education in Kandahar Province

KANDAHAR CITY, Kandahar Province – Twelfth-grade student Rahimullah, 17, is weighing pebbles on a digital scale and then putting them inside little plastic bags. He is working a little apart from the other students following instructions from their teacher and working with chemical substances and test tubes in one corner of the laboratory.

Rahimullah, a student of Sufi Sahib Boys High School, is in the laboratory to revise his chemistry lessons. “With access to the laboratory facility, we can now practice our chemistry experiments,” he says. The laboratory is filled with students who are enthusiastically working on their laboratory experiments.

Sufi Sahib Boys High School is located in the Chuni neighborhood in Kandahar city, the capital of Kandahar Province. Currently, there are over 4,300 students enrolled at the school with 85 teachers and 25 administrative staff.

The high school, which was established in 1972, received a Quality Enhancement Grant (QEG) of $5,500 from the Education Quality Improvement Program (EQUIP II) in 2013. The QEG was spent on equipping its laboratory and library. “Before receiving the grant, both facilities were in bad condition,” says Mohibullah Qaderi, the school’s principal.

EQUIP II, the second phase of the program, seeks to increase equitable access to quality basic education, especially for girls. It is implemented by the Ministry of Education with funding support from the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund (ARTF).  EQUIP was originally supported by the International Development Association (IDA), the World Bank Group’s fund for the poorest countries.

Mohibullah Qaderi points out that the support to equip the school with modern facilities has helped improve the school’s standing. “A good laboratory and library have enhanced the ranking of the school in the entire province,” he says. “It has attracted more students to join the school. Some of the lessons are taught through presentations using projectors—that is rare in the schools of Afghanistan.” 

Conducive environment to learning

In Kandahar, EQUIP works in 12 districts, where it has created 360 School Management Shuras (councils). EQUIP has built 91 school buildings in Kandahar Province, two-thirds of which were built by the School Management Shuras and the rest through contracts with private companies.

The QEG to Sufi Sahib Boys High School follows earlier EQUIP support of an Infrastructure Development Grant of $32,000 to construct a six-classroom building in 2010.

Teacher Abdul Ghafar, 52, notes the positive changes in learning outcomes after the construction of the building. “Before the new building was constructed, students were affected by the hot and cold weather and were not able to concentrate on their studies,” he says. “However, we are able to use fans in the summer and heaters in the winter now. Students concentrate better on their studies and the quality of teaching and learning has improved.”

Hafizullah, 18, a tenth-grader student, is also pleased with the changes. He is sitting in his classroom together with 30 classmates and reading a textbook. “Before the six-classroom building was built, classrooms were overcrowded, which made it hard for students to understand their lessons. Many other students were sitting and studying under tents,” he says. “The classrooms are quiet and conducive to effective learning now.”