78build education, Afghanistan simply
does not have the funds or resources,
and international pledges made during
the 2001 Bonn Conference, 2012
Tokyo Conference and 2014 London
Conference fell far short of what the
country needs to build a bright future
through education.
The situation in Pakistan is
equally dire, although it gets less
attention. Millions of girls never have
an opportunity to go to school. Yet
the government lowered education
funding in this year’s budget to only
2.1 percent of GDP, the lowest in the
country’s 68-year history.
Girls’ education is less of a
hard sell in Tajikistan, thanks in large
part to 70 years of Soviet rule. But
since the Soviet Union’s collapse,
the quality of Tajik education has
declined significantly, resulting in
the first-ever generation of students
with an education inferior to that of
their parents.
But hope endures. The people of
this region are fiercely determined to
build a better future. The awarding of
the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize to Malala
Yousafzai, Pakistan’s young activist
for female education, has increased
awareness of the plight of girls across
the region and the need to “wage a
glorious struggle against illiteracy”.
Time will tell whether the international
community will heed Malala’s call
to action. agKARIN RONNOW spent 25 years as a
newspaper journalist before joining Central
Asia Institute in 2011. She has made
dozens of trips to the villages where CAI
works, documenting projects, interviewing
local people, and preparing field reports.
She earned her bachelor’s degree from
Macalester College, Minnesota, USA and
her master’s degree from Northwestern
University’s Medill School of Journalism,
Illinois, USA. [email protected]ERIK PETERSEN is a Montana-based
photojournalist who made his first trip
on behalf of Central Asia Institute during
the summer of 2012. After 13 years as
a newspaper photographer, he is now
a freelance photojournalist pursuing a
teacher’s degree. He earned his bachelor’s
degree inmass communications from
St. Cloud University, Minnesota, USA.
[email protected]Since 1996, Central Asia Institute (CAI) has partnered with impoverished, underserved communities in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Tajikistan
to promote education, especially for girls. It believes that literacy and education give communities the tools for controlling their own
destiny, create hope and are the surest path to peace. CAI has initiated nearly 400 projects – with more than 100,000 students in 189
schools, scholarship programmes, and literacy and vocational centres. In just one generation, we are seeing the power of education to
transform lives. http://www.ikat.orgabove Students work on an
in-class assignment at the
CAI-supported K-12 school in
Langar, Tajikistan. The small
village, located at the eastern
end of the Tajik Wakhan, is far
from the nation’s capital and
struggles to get government
support for its school