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Twenty months after the power shift in Kabul, a school for Afghan children in faraway Delhi stares at uncertainty, and possible closure, with the Taliban regime, opposed to education of girls and young women, withdrawing all support and recognition.
The Ministry of External Affairs has stepped in to help nearly 300 students of the Sayed Jamaluddin Afghan High School, running from a rented building in Bhogal in Delhi, by asking them to shift to “other Indian schools” given that the Afghan education ministry no longer grants recognition to the school or its students.
The Indian Express has learnt that teachers at the school have been asked to vacate the rented building by the end of May and told that the students must enrol in schools recognised by Indian school boards.
The Afghan school, which has students from classes 1 to 12, uses Dari and Pashto as the teaching medium. It is a unique space for Afghan children in the heart of Delhi, especially girls.
Started in 1994 as an educational centre for children of Afghan refugees in India, it became a primary school in 2008 and a high school in 2017. It was then that the Ashraf Ghani government, on a request from the refugees in India, began funding the school and granted it recognition.
All that changed when Kabul fell to the Taliban on August 15, 2021. When the funding from Afghan government stopped, the MEA helped the school financially and saved it from closure. But now that the school is no longer recognised by those in control of Afghanistan – India does not recognise the Taliban government – the MEA plans to shift the students to schools run by Indian boards.
While MEA spokesperson Arindam Bagchi declined to comment on the matter, another official of the Ministry said, “Since the school is not recognised, we are considering shifting students to schools where they can get recognised certificates from CBSE etc. This is in the larger and long-term interest of the students. There is no point in continuing with a school which is no longer recognised by the authorities in Afghanistan. We will provide financial support to needy students and help them in shifting.”
Reached for comment, Sayed Ziaullah Hashimi, First Secretary at the Afghanistan embassy in Delhi and a member of the school board, said, “Before the Taliban, the school was recognised by the Afghan government which used to issue certificates for board classes. After the Taliban takeover, the Afghan embassy was issuing certificates not recognised by any board. The students are being shifted for their better future. We will try to arrange other jobs for the teachers who will be unemployed.”
A teacher told The Indian Express: “We were informed by Afghan embassy officials that we have to vacate the building by March 31. After we protested, they granted an extension until May-end. They told us that the MEA will no longer financially support our school and we have to close it. They said students will be transferred to Indian schools. They said the school is being closed as it does not have CBSE recognition and the building is not as per standards.”
At least 17 teachers will be unemployed if the school shuts down.
Despite challenges, of the 278 students, there are more girls (143) than boys (135) in the school. Seventeen students who passed out in 2022 had made it to universities, including 13 in Delhi University.
Earlier, the school had also setup ‘Gandhi-Badshah Khan Educational Society’, named after Mahatma Gandhi and Abdul Ghaffar Khan, and was planning to apply for CBSE affiliation. Asked why the school cannot be given CBSE affiliation, MEA official said: “They won’t be able to fulfil stringent CBSE norms.”
Most students are worried about shifting to Indian schools because there are multiple issues such as the language barrier, syllabus change, board exam preparations.
A Class 12 student said: “It is our last year in school and suddenly we are being told to shift to English-medium. Since the beginning, we have studied in our own Afghan school, in our own language. We do have English as one of our subjects but we cannot learn other subjects in English in such a short time. We request the MEA and the Government of India to please think about our future and let our own school continue. This school is also helping us keep our Afghan languages and culture alive while we live in another country.”
