Separately, Afghan Education Minister Muhammad Hanif Atmar said the Afghan government was setting up its own madrassas, or religious schools, to counter the Taliban’s use of education as a “weapon of terrorism”. The first will be established in two months, with one eventually to open in each of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces, the minister said in an interview with AFP. | “The enemies of democracy in this country, the enemies of stability in this part of the world, are actually using education as a weapon of terrorism. They have established for some time now across the border hate madrassas.” |
“The enemies of democracy in this country, the enemies of stability in this part of the world, are actually using education as a weapon of terrorism. They have established for some time now across the border hate madrassas,” he said.
Afghans from poor backgrounds who are enrolled into these free boarding schools are ripe for recruitment into the Taliban insurgency. “They teach them hate and they teach them the kind of things that have no consistency with our religion. And as a result they get suicide bombers recruited from these madrassas and they get Taliban fighters from these madrassas,” said the 39-year-old minister, one of the youngest in The curriculum would produce graduates who are more employable than those from traditional madrassas whose students could only become teachers in religious schools, mullahs or even “join the Taliban ranks.” |
President Hamid KarzaiÂ’s cabinet.
Atmar said it was now the government’s “ethical responsibility” to offer a tolerant and modern Islamic education, as many parents wanted religious schooling for their children. The planned schools, which Atmar said should initially accommodate up to 50,000 children, are to offer 40 percent religious education, 40 percent general education and 20 percent computer science and foreign languages. The curriculum would produce graduates who are more employable than those from traditional madrassas whose students could become teachers in religious schools, mullahs or even “join the Taliban ranks”, Atmar said. The schools would be supervised by the ministry and community boards to ensure that teachers did not deviate from teaching a moderate version of Islam, he said. |