Despair Heads Curriculum for Afghan Teachers

The sun hovered low in the east and a deep chill gnawed the bone as more than 2,000 teachers gathered in a schoolyard to fetch their promised treasure: two plastic jugs of vegetable oil.

They hadn’t been paid in more than six months. A well-to-do Afghan merchant living in the United Arab Emirates had paid for the cooking oil and arranged for it to be distributed to teachers here in Kabul, the Afghan capital. Some schools called off classes for the day so people could wait in the oil line.

By the time the last of the teachers had received the bounty, the sun had dipped low in the west and good cheer about the handout had turned to disappointment. Each person got only half of what was promised: one 3-liter jug of oil, worth about $2 in the market.

The educators had waited at least four hours--and some as long as nine.

When officials from the United States and other nations gathered in Tokyo this week and pledged $4.5 billion for Afghanistan’s reconstruction, they ranked education among the most important tasks. Less than half of Afghanistan’s men and only 15% of its women can read and write.

But as the oil handout shows, the people on the front lines of the education system are struggling just to eat. The teachers are among 285,000 Afghan civil servants--from police officers to hospital workers--owed a total of at least $70 million in back pay, according to the United Nations.

Promising billions of dollars is one thing; handing it over is quite another, if recent pledges are any indication. Last November, various countries promised about $100 million to an Afghan emergency fund, but so far, they have come through with only $16.8 million. Still, it allowed Afghanistan to dole out a month’s back wages to some government employees beginning Tuesday.

“We thank you for your [future] billions, but we need your millions [now],” Ahmed Fawzi, a spokesman for the U.N. in Afghanistan, said before the Tokyo meeting.

Abdul Kabir, 38, bicycled 70 minutes from his home to the oil distribution site, once a prestigious girls’ school with classical columns that now serves as the city’s education administration center.

“Teachers are the most unfortunate people in society,” he said. “We are candles producing light for others. But now, our lives are so miserable, we are simply burning down and can’t even cast a glimmer.”

Kabir teaches the literature and grammar of Dari, one of Afghanistan’s two national languages, to high school students. He is owed about $300 in back wages; his monthly salary is supposed to be $40.

Noor Ahmad, 56, said he and other teachers owe so much to local shopkeepers who have given them goods on credit that “we don’t dare to show our faces.”

Still, many have continued to teach, even without pay. “We had to,” said Mohammed Hasan, 32, an English teacher. “We had nothing else to do, and it was our homeland.”

It’s amazing that they even bother because conditions are so deplorable. At nearby Esteqlal High School, teachers huddle with students on cold floors. Built by the French, the school was once a model facility, with a swimming pool and state-of-the-art laboratories. Now, there isn’t one desk or chair; all were plundered and sold in Kabul’s bazaar by warring clans in the early 1990s, before the Taliban took over.

There are no textbooks or pencils. There is no electricity. The little warmth there is comes when sunlight streams through the huge window frames, most holding giant shards of broken glass that hang like icicles.

“Thank Allah it’s sunny,” said Tajuddin Seddeqi, the newly appointed chief of Kabul’s school system. “If it were snowing, it would kill them.”

Seddeqi views education as the only hope for this society long divided by warring factions. “If there was even average literacy, would there have been any fighting?” he asked.

Although most schools traditionally are closed from November to March, many are offering special “winter sessions” this year.

Esteqlal High enrolled girls again and hired back female teachers after the Taliban fled the city last November and a ban on teaching girls was lifted. But the school has sent female students home in recent days because it considers the freezing temperatures too harsh for them.

To support their families, teachers often moonlight. Many push wooden carts at the bazaar, selling items such as oranges, soap and vegetables.

Kabir, the Dari literature teacher, hawks used shoes from his cart, earning about 20 cents for each pair he sells. On a good day, he pockets $2.

Abdul Karim, 45, a janitor in a school, lugs things for people in the bazaar. “Even if I’m carrying boxes,” he said, “I should be proud because I’m not stealing or getting money the wrong way.”

But operating a cart requires a small amount of capital for supplies--money that some instructors, such as physics teacher Mohammed Amin, can’t afford. “Every day, my five children ask me for one packet of crackers,” said Amin, who wears thick glasses because of an eye injury sustained in an accident. “But I can’t even buy that.”

By noon at the distribution center, not one jug of the cooking oil had been handed out. A group of about a dozen education officials and teachers conferred in a classroom with the donor’s representative, Haji Mohammed Dullah. So many teachers, almost all of them men, had shown up that there was not enough oil to give each the promised two jugs--the amount that female teachers had received the day before.

The men discussed what they should do and considered handing out three jugs for every two people, forcing teachers to share. Finally, they just decided to give one jug to each educator.

Milling in the crowd of hundreds outside, Kabir grew peeved about his wasted time. “Why didn’t they count it before and figure how many cans were needed so we didn’t have to wait here from morning to midday?” he asked. “We could have worked in the bazaar to make at least enough money for lunch.”

Shah Rahman, 38, a high school science teacher, says he had expected the U.S. to do more to provide food. “We were given promises on the radio [on U.S. broadcasts directed at Afghans during the war] that after terrorism was annihilated, there wouldn’t be any more starvation,” he said. “Now, we’re even more scared because the U.S. is doing nothing.”

The oil was being distributed on behalf of merchant Haji Mohammed Sharif. For each of the last three years, he has helped the teachers: Two years ago he gave each about $5 in cash, and last year about $2.

Why oil this year? “When they have oil, they can cook meat, vegetables, eggs and use it with flour or rice, to cook potatoes or ordinary food,” said Dullah, his representative. They also hope that expanding the supply will drive down the price of oil in the market.

At 1 p.m., the first of the oil jugs made its debut, as each school was called in turn. Attendance sheets were checked, signatures compared and a mark resembling a “C” drawn on each teacher’s hand. A wait in another line finally secured the sought-after jug of Healthy brand oil. A slash was drawn across the “C.”

Rahman, the science teacher, strapped the oil to the back seat of his ramshackle bicycle. “I waited from morning till 1:45 for one can of oil,” he said. “I feel ashamed of this. But at least I can have some cauliflower tonight.”

Many hadn’t eaten lunch. “If I sold this, it wouldn’t even cover my car fare and my foot ache,” said one man who had walked nearly five miles.

Sayed Sadeq, 47, another Dari language teacher, was among the last to get his oil, at close to 4 p.m. “What is the value of teachers in your country?” he asked. He listened intently as an American described how the status of teachers in the U.S. has improved in recent years along with their salaries, with many represented by powerful unions.

He was asked in turn: And what about the status of teachers in Afghan society?

“This is the value of teachers in Afghanistan,” he retorted, hoisting the yellow plastic container toward his face in disgust. “One jug of cooking oil.”