USAID/HEP

Shahla Dastyar observing her student, Mursal Sarwari, who is in tum teaching students at a high school in Kabul.

Five years ago, teachers in high schools struggled with a lack of knowledge and students found it hard to grasp concepts in tedious lectures. A few years before that, females were banned from teaching and studying at all. Now, classrooms in Afghanistan are starting to feel full of life as young men and women study with confident, skilled teachers who present up-to-date materials in an interesting way.

Mursal Sarwar, a fourth year student at Kabul Education University, is teaching physics at a high school in Kabul. Her classes are full of discussion. She smiles at the students, encourages questions, and creates an enthusiasm for learning.

Mursal’s own professor is in the room observing her teaching. Shahla Dastyar is a graduate of the USAID-funded Afghan Masters in Education program. She is passing on the skills she learned in the course to her students at university who are now teaching future generations of Afghans in high schools. The two women, mentor and mentee, know they have been given an opportunity to influence the future and are working hard to do so. Mursal said, “Positive changes can be seen in my teaching because of what I learned from my professors who completed the Afghan Masters in Education program.”

USAID’s education initiative in Afghanistan is working toward creating a more vibrant, less corrupt, sustainable education system that will increase the capacity and stability of the country. The masters program has played a key role in achieving these goals. Since it started in 2006, 44 graduates, including 22 women, have gone on to become mentors of students at 11 universities round the country and they will go on to teach thousands of students at high schools. A student in Mursal’s class said, “I like doing group work and I love the professional conduct of my teacher.”

The program will be handed over to Kabul Education University in the near future and with professors like Shahla, the future of education in Afghanistan is in good hands.

Vibrant Lessons Changing Education