Perhaps the prosperity of a society can be gauged from how much children enjoy going to school. In any case, in Peshawar, in Pakistan, they love to go. You don’t have to work to help support the family, or help out at home or on the farm. You can study for a few hours a day, know something, report yourself, do silly things. Chairs can be heard squeaking in the courtyard of the boys’ school, there is a lot of whispering and excited laughter suppressed. The kind of clamorous silence that little boys mistake for silence.
On the first floor in one of the classrooms, 55 students huddle together, sometimes in threes in a bench. Some are wearing hats, winter has set in here too, twelve to 14 degrees in the morning, but there is no heating in the building. Today the boys are learning to distinguish between animals and plants using a textbook. “Pomegranate,” says one in English, stands up and shows the relevant branch. “Palm”, another holding out a palm leaf in front of him. The backpacks look pretty worn out, and if you were lucky you could get one with a “Spiderman” motif. Is that your favourite? “Yes.” What other superheroes do you know? Giggling, insecurity, “they only see it on their parents’ smartphones if they’re allowed to use it,” says her teacher, “they don’t know the names of the comics.”
Peshawar is a city of over one million in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. It used to be an important trading post near the border. Since 1979, the civil war and the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan, Peshawar has also been a refugee city. The majority of people living here are Pashtuns, who also form the largest population group in Afghanistan. In the west, the city is most likely associated with terror. There have been repeated attacks over the past 20 years – Osama bin Laden maintained a house here that was considered the cradle of al-Qaeda. Driving through Peshawar today, one sees much crumbling beauty and poverty. Since the withdrawal of Western troops from Afghanistan, the number of refugees has been rising again.
Muhammed Afzal Khan is the principal of the school in Sufaid Dehri.
(Photo: David Pfeifer)
A total of around 580 boys go to primary school in the Sufaid Dehri district every day. There is also a school for girls, but men, including journalists, are not allowed to go there. It is not a matter of course that the schools are well attended. About 44 percent of children in Pakistan do not go to school. This currently equates to 22 million. People who will later enter the labor market without qualifications and who often cannot even read and write.
Muhammed Afzal Khan, the director of the school in Sufaid Dehri, explains where the problems start: “With the school uniforms. A school uniform costs about 2,000 rupees, but you need two, and twice that, for summer and winter.” That is 8000 rupees per child, about 35 euros. A lot of money for parents who earn their money by selling vegetables or driving taxis. The uniform, a holdover from the English colonial era, actually good for making class differences invisible, becomes a hurdle. The textbooks, which are squeezed into a cupboard in the staff room, are so worn that they sometimes roll over themselves.
The school documents bend on the shelf in the staff room.
(Photo: David Pfeifer)
The Parents Teacher Council, which they set up to solve problems like this, is currently meeting in the teachers’ room. “We collect for poor families if the uniform fails,” says Afzal Khan, “or help with official visits.” Because the authorities also make it difficult for the people, especially those who have fled from Afghanistan. “They have to register their children with two places before they can go to school,” says Afzal Khan. Schooling is actually compulsory here. And a right to education. You just have to be able to perceive them.
In an emergency, children are a substitute for social or pension insurance
The fact that the people in this region, whether Pakistani or Afghan, have many children is also due to the fact that one is better protected in a large family. In an emergency, children are a substitute for social or pension insurance. But those who go to school become a burden to feed one more mouth, and when difficulties with the authorities are added, the temptation is great not to send the children to class at all. So you have to do educational work, explain that today’s education can be tomorrow’s better income. For the whole family. This is one of the reasons why the men from the parent-teacher advisory board are involved in their neighborhood and in the refugee camps, which after more than 40 years of war in the neighboring country have long been called “refugee villages”.
Shams Uddin has ten children, six daughters and four sons.
(Photo: David Pfeifer)
Shams Uddin is one of the dedicated fathers. A 40-year-old Afghan man who fled Jalalabad with his parents when he was a young child. In Pakistan he himself became the father of ten children, six daughters and four sons. In 1998 Uddin returned to his homeland. But then his father was killed and the family house burned down, so he came back to Pakistan. His two youngest sons go to school here in Sufaid Dehri. “I would like them to become engineers, to be able to work in a real office, maybe even in Germany,” he says and laughs. Uddin himself is a shoemaker, specializing in the typical sandals of the region.
And his daughters, are they in the other school? “Yes, they should also get a good education so that they don’t have to rely solely on their husbands later on,” he says. For a Pashtun, that’s a downright feminist view. Consequently, Shams Uddin does not like the fact that the Taliban no longer want girls to go to school in his home country. “But they are at least more moderate than they were 20 years ago, and in general they want to make school education possible,” he says. It’s still better for his daughters to grow up in Pakistan. They also meet once a month on the advisory board of the girls’ school to define the general conditions for attending school. Who is allowed to teach how high the walls must be, behind which the girls can move freely, protected from all eyes.
Nina Harnischfeger from GIZ supports with know-how and logistics.
(Photo: David Pfeifer)
Down in the courtyard is Nina Harnischfeger, who, as an employee of the German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ), supports around 60 schools like this across the country, mainly with know-how and logistics. How do you handle the money you’ve been given, how do you document expenses, things like that. In her experience, it is not so much the will that is lacking as the resources and experience. “There are also more complicated cases, for example if you want to get the girls into the school. Then you have to talk to the religious leaders and clarify the conditions,” says the 33-year-old. The most important thing, however, is the training of the teachers and parents who are involved in the advisory board, for example in looking after pupils with disabilities. This has to be determined first, for example if the children have hearing or visual impairments. Sometimes it helps to put them at the front so that they can follow the lesson better.
The students have now slowly got used to the visit, it has become quieter in the building. The caretaker proudly guides you through the facility and shows you the new water dispensers, which you can use to wash your hands or face from time to time. A staircase leads up to the flat roof, where you have to pray or play. Three boys are practicing badminton and come running curiously. They say they want to win the school championships.
From the roof you also have a good view over the barren landscape and the cemetery behind the school. It’s not that many years from one place to another. Only here, at the beginning, at school, it is usually decided how well you spend the time up to that point.