Hoosiers help rebuild Afghan schools

In the remotest provinces of Afghanistan, universities have only names. The classrooms, dormitories and libraries lie mostly in rubble. \nAfghan Minister of Education Sharif Fayez says the 20 Afghan universities are in a "crisis."\n"We don't have infrastructure. We don't have capacity," Fayez said. "Our budget is not more than $400,000, which is not enough to even repair a building. We are not prepared for (the future) unless we can receive help."\nFor the first time in 25 years, though, that future looks bright. \nThe Taliban have been purged from the country. Afghan refugees from around the world are returning to their villages. Women are shedding their veils and gaining new freedoms. \nFayez said the number of Afghans enrolled in higher education is expected to double from 26,000 to 52,000 next year. But damaged by years of neglect during the Taliban regime and ethnic fighting since Sept. 11, the universities are not ready to support the sudden changes. \nOn Sunday and Monday, a group of 35 Afghan leaders and scholars gathered at IU to find a solution to the country's ailing university system. Minister of Education Fayez said the discussions identified three areas of need for the country: obtaining financial support for rebuilding, reforming curriculum and organizing a league for historical review. \n"The conditions are in such a state of ruin," Fayez said. "Our first priority must be buildings, classrooms and teaching materials."\nUnlike Afghan president Hamed Karzai who dons a traditional Pashtun cape called a chapan, Fayez dressed in a suit and striped orange tie. \n"We are quite fortunate there is a great deal of interest with American universities," he said after the conference. "Afghanistan was isolated during the Taliban regime. Now we think we are part of the world."\nThe Minister said he would like to establish a partnership between IU and universities in Kabul and the American University of Kharzikstan. \nCharles Reafsnyder, associate dean for international research and development, said Afghanistan is interested in building its own U.S.-style university with help from IU. \n"These discussions are very preliminary," he said. "If we can get some external funding, we'll help the minister of education develop the concept."\nReafsnyder also said the IU School of Education and Fayez talked about sending faculty to Afghanistan to teach English. The school will meet later this week to further explore the proposal. \nThe Minister of Education made the cross-continent voyage from Kabul to the Midwest to meet with one man: IU Professor M. Nazif Shahrani. \nShahrani is an Afghan-American who grew up in the northeastern province of Badakhshan, Afghanistan, where his family still lives. He has dedicated his life to an anthropological study of his native country, and he arranged and organized the education conference. \n"The ministry really needed some kind of help," he said. "The conference provided a blueprint for a plan for higher education there."\nHe said the IU gathering was the first of its kind anywhere in the world. Other organizations have stepped in and helped the Afghans design a plan for rebuilding. Shahrani said this was the only conference led and attended exclusively by Afghans.\n"There have been other plans from the World Bank, USAID, the Germans and many others," he said. "But they were not the Afghan people's own plans."\nHe said the results of the conference will give the Afghan government leverage when negotiating for financial support.\n"Now that we have a concrete blueprint, the government can say, these are our needs, these are the projects we'd like to do," Shahrani said.\nBeginning in the 1950s, IU has played a role in the region. Under the leadership of President Herman B. Wells, an administrative exchange program was set up with Kabul University. Shahrani said it had an enormous influence on the way Kabul University operated.\nHundreds of Afghans also received Master's Degrees in education and administration at IU. \nThe program was terminated after the communist coup in 1979, but many of the Afghan scholars returned to IU for the education conference.\n"A lot of this is really about human contact and personal friendships," Shahrani said. "Once the Afghanistan program started, Wells certainly took special interest in it and made friends with the Chancellor of Kabul University." \n"IU has a deep intellectual and teaching interest in the region," Dean for International Programs Patrick O'Meara said. "Wells helped to build up the University of Kabul, another of his great legacies."\nO'Meara said the future of Afghanistan rests on U.S. help in rebuilding the universities and the cities. \n"If we don't assist them to provide opportunities and help reconstruct, the discontent might emerge, and there might be a very open situation again for radical groups," he said.\nShahrani said the Afghans are "a patient and resilient people." A little help from the United States will go a long way, he said.\n"It is a daunting but not impossible challenge," he said. "The Afghans have already survived a quarter century of war."\nThis summer he traveled back to his country, spending two weeks in his home village where his seven brothers and sisters still live, and exploring universities in the northern provinces. It was the first time he had returned to Afghanistan since the Taliban came to power in 1996. Much has changed, he said.\n"It was depressing to see places I remembered as standing to be all in ruins," he said. "But there is a great deal of new talent in the country. People are flocking back in"