Religious perspectives
Islamic and modern education in Afghanistan: conflictual or complementary?
The historical context of religion and education in Afghanistan
Authors:
P. Karlsson; A. Mansory
Publisher:
Network for Research and Evaluation on Education and Development , 2008
Despite decades of conflict and civil strife, Afghanistan has a rich history of highly developed civilisations where art, literature and sciences have flourished. Written languages have existed for thousands of years and the domination of Islam in the region has long influenced the scope and impact of education.This chapter describes the development of Islamic and modern education and the conflicts and tensions over the content and over girls' participation in modern education.
From an educational perspective, three issues have been at the centre of many upheavals and rebellions in Afghanistan throughout modern history - the role of Islam in education, education for girls and state control of Islamic education. Today, in spite of widespread illiteracy, almost all ordinary Afghan men and a majority of Afghan women are able to "read" the Koran, memorise some parts and posses knowledge of the basic Islamic rules and values. For the Afghan Muslim, Islamic education is a duty as well as a right and few have the opinion that such education should be separated from the modern education.
The paper concludes that:
- traditional madrasas and possibly also modern madrasas will certainly remain in Afghanistan, particularly in areas where it takes a long time to establish primary schools or if the curriculum becomes too secularised
- outside pressure, aid dependency and internal power struggles may again affect the education system negatively
- it should be remembered that it was not the foreign money and support in the first hand that changed the attitudes towards education among the rural poor and paved the way for success, but rather that parents with confidence could send their children to a modern school that maintained the role of Islam.
