Education
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7 Education
SUMMARY.
The overall indicators of education and literacy in Afghanistan relect an education system that has performed very poorly. In addition, they invariably show very large gender gaps. Overall, only 17 percent of the population
aged 25 years and over has attended any type of formal education, and the corresponding igure for women is as low as 6 percent. This manifests the lack of human capital in the country, which is required for good
public administration and strong private sectors in the economy. The low literacy rates – 26 percent of the total adult population, and 12 and 39 percent for females and males, respectively – also imply that the large
majority of people is denied access to much information relevant to them and to further personal development. Despite these extremely poor overall indicators, there are signs of strong improvement in recent years,
probably since the overthrow of the Taliban regime. Although still 2.3 million primary-school age children are not attending primary school, the net primary enrolment ratio reported in the NRVA 20078 is 52 percent
against 37 percent in the 2005 round. Analysis of literacy by age also supports this sign of improvement of the education system. In the youngest age groups beyond primary school age literacy rates rise sharply.
This suggests that after decades of stagnation, male literacy increases from around 30 to 62 percent in the youngest age group, and female literacy from below 10 to 37 percent. In addition, the literacy gender gap
has started to narrow, indicating that educational improvement has especially beneitted girls. This effect is, however, particularly observed in urban areas; in rural areas the absolute gap between male and female
literacy rates is largely maintained. The rural population lags behind in educational development to the extent that literacy rates and gender gap indicators of the youngest age groups is now at the level of the
urban population at the start of the observed recent surge in literacy levels.
7.1 Introduction
Education is one of the most important aspects of human development. The Convention on the Rights of the Child – the most widely ratified human rights treaty – enshrines the right of all children to a primary education that will give them the skills they
need to continue learning throughout life. Yet, a large majority of Afghan people have been denied this right, most of them women and girls. Consequently, they are bereft of many opportunities for personal development and contributions to society.
The present chapter starts out with an assessment of the main findings of the 20078 survey on literacy, one of the key effects of education Section 7.2. Subsequently, Section 7.3 addresses the present performance of Afghanistan’s
educational system by reviewing attendance and non-attendance, and some of their backgrounds. Finally, a brief section 7.4 is dedicated to the accumulated human capital in terms of highest educational levels attained by Afghanistan’s adult
population. The chapter also presents most of the education-related MDG indicators.
7.2 Literacy
Literacy generally denotes the ability to read and write and to use written words in everyday life. Literacy is one of the intended outcomes of education, as well as a measure of a person’s ability to function in society and his or her
potential for further intellectual growth and contribution to economic and socio-cultural development of society. The complementary illiteracy indicates the extent of need for policies and efforts in organizing adult literacy programmes and
quality primary education.
The adult literacy rate – referring to the population age 15 and over – indicates the accumulated achievement of primary
education and literacy programmes in providing basic literacy skills to the population.
Table 7.1 shows very low adult literacy rates for Afghanistan, also compared to its neighbouring
countries. The difference between male and female literacy – 39 and 12 percent, respectively is very large with 27 percentage
points. The gender gap expressed as a ratio shows that the female literacy rate is only 32 percent of the male rate. This
ratio calculated for the youth sub-population is one of the MDG indicators to measures progress towards gender equity see
the box on MDG Indicator 10 below.
Self-reported literacy
In surveys it is often observed that people overstate their ability to read and write because they may be reluctant
to admit to their illiteracy. In addition, if one household respondent, such as the household head, reports on literacy
for all household members, he or she may be mistaken in literacy of other household members.
The 20078 NRVA included a request to the male household head and to the primary female household member to read
a sentence from a flash card in order to check the self- reported literacy. Tested and self-reported literacy were
remarkably similar. This suggests that literacy figures of the survey have a high validity.
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Table 7.1 also shows that residential distribution of literacy is highly unequal. The urban population has by far the highest
literacy levels, as well as the smallest – but still very large – gap between men and women. The literacy rates for the rural and
especially the Kuchi populations are significantly lower, with extremely large gender gaps. The maps of
Figures 7.1a and 7.1b below allow a comparison of literacy rates by province and sex.
The MICS 2003 and the NRVA 2005 had slightly higher literacy rates overall 29 and 28 percent, respectively, which would
suggest a decline in literacy. It is more likely, however, that this unexpected finding is to be attributed to a difference in phrasing
of the survey questions on literacy.
1
Figure 7.2 strongly supports the notion of significant improvement of literacy recently. The graph provides a look back in time and
is a measure of the effectiveness of the primary education system at the time the respondents were in primary school age.
It suggests that for decades, no improvement of education was achieved, as people with reported ages in the mid-twenties and
older all have similar literacy rates – females between 5 and 10 percent; males just above 35 percent. A remarkable surge in literacy is observed for the younger ages, resulting in rates
of 37 percent for girls in the age group 12-16 and 62 percent for boys in the same age group.
Table 7.1 Literacy rates and gender gap indicators of population aged 15 years and over, by residence, and by sex
Sex Residence
Afghanistan Pakistan
Iran Tajikistan
Urban Rural
Kuchi National
a. Literacy rates
Male 62
35 14
39 65
84 100
Female 33
7 3
12 29
70 99
Both sexes 48
21 8
26 n.d.
n.d. n.d.
b. Gender gap indicators
Absolute difference 29
28 11
27 36
14 1
Femalemale ratio 54
20 19
32 45
83 99
Source for Iran, Pakistan and Tajikistan: UNFPA 2008
The upturn in literacy rates is directly accompanied by an increase in the ratio between female and male literacy rates the blue dotted line. For every age above 26, the female literacy rate is less than 25 percent of the male rate, but for the
youngest age group the figure rises to 63 percent. Whereas the absolute gender gap remains the same for the older age groups that experienced the literacy improvement around 30 percentage points; the red line, in the younger cohorts it
has decreased to 20 percentage points. The basic message of these figures is that in recent years a large improvement must have been achieved in primary education, and that, relatively, girls benefitted more than boys and begin to catch up
with them. In no previous living generation has the gender gap been so small. Given the timing of the start of the surge in literacy and the observed gender effect, there is every reason to directly link these developments to the overthrow of
the Taliban regime.
2
MDG Indicator 2.3: Literacy rate of the 15-24 year-olds, women and men
This youth literacy rate is one of the indicators to monitor progress towards the goal of universal primary education MDG
goal 2. It reflects the outcomes of primary education over the previous roughly 10 years. As a measure of the effectiveness
of the primary education system, it is often seen as a proxy measure of social progress and economic achievement.
The NRVA indicates that the overall youth literacy rate is 39 percent, indicating that in recent years the education
system of Afghanistan was able to provide 39 percent of its young population 53 percent of the male and 24 percent of
the female population basic reading and writing skills. The respective figures for this MDG indicator for the urban, rural
and Kuchi populations are 63, 33 and 12 percent.
Together with Niger and Mali, Afghanistan takes a bottom- three ranking in international performance UNICEF 2009.
However, compared with the NRVA 2005 figure – 31 percent – it is a significant increase, and the more so since the figure
is based on a broader definition of literacy.
_________________________________________________________ 1
In addition, the MICS 2003 did not include the Kuchi population with particularly low literacy rates.
2
The relatively progressed age at which the start of the literacy improvement is observed is likely caused by a combination of the use of five-year age groups, age misreporting and educational catch-up at ages beyond the formal primary school age.
