28. December 2025
For the past two months and several weeks, much of our focus has been occupied with the Ministry of Education. These are the kind of people where, for example, when you submit a document to request permission for an activity, they review it before approving and point out the deficiencies and issues so that it aligns with the current laws and procedures of the Ministry education. Imagine your document is five pages long. If they find a flaw or issue on the first page that needs to be corrected, they return the document to you for revision without even checking the remaining four pages.
Then, when you make the correction on the first page according to their instruction and resubmit the document for approval, they might then find new issues on the second, third, or even all remaining pages. Again, the document is returned to you for further revision. Each time they find a new issue and return it to you for correction, and you resubmit it, the process takes about a week.
We were waiting for the committee’s decision whether they would approve or reject our project. However, instead of a clear yes or no, they gave us two options: either we submit our own curriculum for approval, or we include in our project proposal that we will teach the Ministry of Education’s official curriculum to students. But they did make one decision in our favor: if we choose to submit our curriculum for approval, and it is endorsed by the Directorate of Foreign Relations, one of the Minister’s advisors (who is also a committee member), the Secondary Education Directorate, and the Ministry’s Curriculum Department, then we will be granted permission to operate. Although our curriculum will still be sent to the Amir’s Office in Kandahar for final approval, they assured us that our project will not be delayed while waiting for that process to be completed.
The Directorate of Foreign Relations and the Minister’s advisor shared some comments and suggestions for changes. First, they noted that our educational materials should have been presented in book format. Until now, we had been using them in chapter form, provided by OFARIN, which was more cost-effective and allowed us to easily reprint them multiple times using our own resources. They asked us to replace the names of women used in the comprehension questions with male names instead. Another change they requested which I would like to mention here was that our books used the term „Mullah,“ but they were not comfortable with this word and said that we should use the term „Maulawi“ instead. Honestly, I don’t exactly know the difference between the two, but I think perhaps „Maulawi“ is considered more respectful than „Mullah“. They also asked us to add relevant illustrations alongside common titles in the books for example, next to the title „Homework“ there should be a small picture of a house. Or, if the text says „students should listen“ there should be a picture of an ear next to it. We made all these changes to the extent that they did not affect the originality of OFARIN’s curriculum. After several rounds of reviews, comments, and revisions, our curriculum was finally submitted to the Specific Curriculum Directorate along with an official letter for final evaluation. However, we have not yet received any comments or approval from them.
During this time, while our team members were regularly going to the Ministry of Education to receive comments or submit the revised curriculum, they were also carrying out other tasks. They designed the forms that we would need during the survey process for selecting locations and determining where classes should be established.
Our colleagues also set the criteria for student enrollment in order to prevent the admission of students who were already familiar with the subjects being taught in our classes. This would help avoid wasting educational materials and ensure that those students who needed our curriculum the most would be the ones attending our classes.
At the end of December, we conducted monitoring of the active classes in Khost province, which are organized and managed by our local partner organization, ODIA. Noticeable improvements had been made in areas where shortcomings had previously been observed and where guidance for corrections had been given. Two teachers had deficiencies in understanding OFARIN’s teaching guidelines, so our team recommended that they review the rules again. An evaluation exam focused specifically on OFARIN’s teaching guidelines will be administered to these teachers fifteen days later. Overall, students performed very well in reading and math. However, in some classes, our team noticed that students were doing little writing practice. This issue was shared with the respective teachers, and they were informed that if students do not write sufficiently, it will be very difficult for them to show positive progress in their writing skills.
In this monitoring, we also conducted a comparative evaluation of the classes in Khost. Based on the implementation of teaching guidelines, students‘ academic progress, and adherence to attendance and punctuality rules, the class that ranked first was the one taught by a female teacher.
This winter, our activities in the area of forest restoration are less compared to the past two years, as we did not start any new project during this winter. Our team members regularly visit and monitor the two existing projects to ensure that there are no issues in terms of maintenance. In Khost, our colleagues continuously conduct two public awareness workshops each month in the respective districts of each project, totaling four workshops per month. One point worth mentioning is that during winter, community participation in our workshops is higher than in any other season, as people in mountainous areas are generally less busy during winter. In Khost, our provincial team has already started working to identify any dried saplings so that they can be replaced with new ones.
Trade between Afghanistan and Pakistan is still suspended. All the routes connecting Afghanistan to Pakistan remain closed. If anyone smuggles goods from Pakistan into Afghanistan, the Taliban government seizes and burns them similar to how they destroy narcotics after seizure. Afghan traders have now turned to importing goods from other neighboring countries. Although prices in Afghan markets initially increased, they are now gradually decreasing day by day. The closure of trade with Pakistan has had a positive impact on the situation of domestic manufacturing factories in Afghanistan, most notably in the pharmaceutical sector. Afghan pharmaceutical factories, which previously had very limited or almost no market, are now experiencing a significant increase in medicine sales. In my opinion, if this opportunity continues, Afghan pharmaceutical companies will make rapid progress both in terms of quality and quantity. Although medicines are still being imported from neighboring foreign countries, they are just as new to the Afghan markets as the locally produced Afghan medicines.
Whenever the Taliban want to enforce a new rule on the people, they first promote it gradually so that it takes root in people’s minds and becomes normalized. Then, they begin implementing it more seriously over time. For example, they had informed universities not to allow students with shaved beards to participate in exams. However, when exam time came, they only assigned a few people at some universities for a short period to prevent such students from entering. They did not enforce the ban strictly. In many cases, after placing some restrictions or obtaining written commitments from certain students, they were eventually allowed to take the exams. This approach indicates that the enforcement of such rules is moving gradually toward becoming more serious.
Hewad Khan