By: Mirwais Jalalzai

The taller girls at Jahan Maleka girls’ high school entertain other classmates by trying to simultaneously touch both walls in their tiny old classrooms. It’s a joyful game that gets everyone laughing, especially in summer when the rooms are so stifling that studying is almost impossible.

Those oppressive afternoons are fewer now that the school has 11 more classrooms, including a fresh opened science laboratory, in a big blue building across the compound. Behind a brick boundary wall in the south western Gazni province of Afghanistan, the school has recently doubled in size with support from the afghan government and some international NGOs.

According to the reports of afghan education ministry it’s now estimated girls’ enrollment has increased to 3.4 million from less than 200,000 in 2002, and boys’ attendance has grown to about 5.3 million from less than one million.

“Our girls want to be in the new building with new classes now,” says teacher Freba , 26. “In these very old rooms, it can be very hot, and when it rains, the water comes through the roof and they get scared, but still they want to study so we need to keep using both these places.”

Taliban and the civil war in the 1990s largely destroyed Afghanistan’s education system and girls were not allowed to attend school by Taliban.

Today, about 50 percent of the country’s schools do not have proper buildings, and more than half of teachers have not graduated from Grade 12, according to UN.

Jahan Maleka girls’ high school, about 1500 students now attend grades 3 to 12 in two half-day shifts, and more are arriving every few months, says Principal. “People are hearing this is a good, safe place for their daughters to study,” she said. “We want people to think of this as their home. Other schools may have burned, but not here. The community is fully supporting us.”

The enrollment increase at Jahan Maleka girls’ high school is due, in large part, to the work of the school shura, says Noori. A council or shura of local elders, teachers, parents, and students regularly meets to discuss any challenges facing the school.

A retired bank worker, Abdullah , 75, joined the Jahan Malika girls’ high school shura ( supporting group) after his daughter started teaching at the school. “Now, we all go out in the community and to the mosques to tell everybody to bring their boys and girls here. If they don’t, we encourage them until they do,” Abdullah says with a grin.

Aqela Nawabi, 15, is one of two students on the shura. She says members of the group recently “sat a few times” with one family who wouldn’t give permission to their daughter to attend school because they were worried about her security.

“But after some time, they agreed and now she is here in Class 11,” says Aqela.

This school has made the future very bright for us. Before we were studying under the trees…but now we have a roof over our heads, and in our new building, there are fans, so this is very good, she said.

Education is clearly essential to the girls in the white headscarves who still sit shoulder to shoulder in many classrooms, says student Zahra Bahar, 16. “This school has made the future very bright for us. Before we were studying under the trees, in the shade beside the wall, or in tents, but now we have a roof over our heads, and in our new building, there are fans, so this is very good,” says Fatima, a Class 10 student who wants to be a doctor or lawyer in the future .

Fawzia Nawabi, 17, plans to be an engineer so she can “rebuild my country, and create even more beautiful schools.”

“Afghanistan has been a destroyed place because there are some people who wanted to defeat us. But we won’t admit defeat. We will take our place in the future,” says Fawzia, a Class 11 student. For her own family, she envisions a modern home with a swimming pool in the garden.

“Life should be a pleasing experience, like these murals on our walls,” adds Fawzia, pointing at a nearby school artist putting the finishing touches on a painting of a former Afghan king. In the new building, other colorful murals depict famous poets or the periodic tables.

Even the school has made much progress, but a few problems still exist, such as the lack of books that would better explain how to teach class material to the upper grades, Marjan a teacher of this school said.

“But this is why I am part of the shura,” she says. “We are working on solving all these problems. Just in the last few months, we have started a school development plan. There is still a long way ahead and mach things to do, but already we have come so far.”