Over 5000 schoolteachers in the southern Ghazni province will receive a two-year professional training aimed at their honing their skills, officials said the other day.
The training of teachers would be conducted as part of the Building Education Support System for Teachers (BESST) initiative of the ministry concerned. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) will extend financial support for the programme.

Ghazni Education Director Najibullah Kamran, speaking to Pajhwok Afghan News, described the programme extremely useful for raising the standards of education. The initiative would be launched in all 18 districts in the near future, he added.

He revealed 150 teachers, to be trained on professional and teaching methodologies, will transfer their skills to their counterparts in districts. "With the implementation of this programme, all teachers in Ghazni will be able to impart better education to their students."

Although he said 80 per cent of the 8000 teachers across the province would receive professional training over the next two years, many students complain of a lack of professional educators.

A student of 10th class at the Shamsul Arifin High School in Ghazni City, Ibrahim said there were no professional teachers even in the provincial capital. "Half of our teachers are untrained and hence unable to teach us the subjects assigned to them," the pupil grumbled.

Officials in some districts are concerned the programme may not be implemented in remote districts due to insecurity. Dur Muhammad Sardarzai, education department chief of Zankhan district, said the teachers trained in Ghazni City won’t be able to instruct their peers in far-flung areas, where security is on a nosedive.

The Education Ministry says the pilot phase of the BESST programme has already been launched in 10 provinces including Kabul. In Ghazni, there are 433 high, middle and primary schools in addition to 11 seminaries.

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