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There is a significant lack of academic research on the history of modern education in Afghanistan. The history of modern education in Afghanistan, and factors that have influenced as well as constrained its development, have not received a deserving attention thus far. The existing body of literature on Afghanistan focuses primarily on historical, political or ethnographic developments within the country. During the three Anglo-Afghan wars (1839–42, 1878–80, and 1919), Afghanistan became a buffer zone between Russian and British advancements in Central and South Asia. The military coup of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) in April 1978, and the subsequent Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979, placed the country in the middle of cold war politics. The rise of resistance parties to political power from April 1992 to September 1996 and the rule of the Taliban regime from September 1996 to November 2001 have focused the world's attention on Afghanistan. These events have resulted in the production of copious amounts of literature on Afghanistan that largely focus on the country's ethnography, geology, and political issues facing the country, such as the impact of communist ideology and the Soviet Union's influence on Afghanistan, or the Taliban's style of governance and their restriction on women's movement in public spaces. Education has only received piecemeal and sporadic attention. Government documents on education provide descriptive statistical reports, mostly for propaganda purposes. They lack independent analytical and critical views. In addition, articles and reports on education over the past years have mainly been based on the reports and experiences of people working with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) for refugees and the internally displaced population. The state's formal education system has been viewed through the lenses of donor institutions, NGOs and media reports. These documents, which also cover the Taliban's period and their treatment of women and women's education, share important information about the educational crisis in Afghanistan, but they do not provide independent academic investigation or a thorough analysis of the development of modern education. The fall of the Taliban from power in November 2001 has shifted research attention to the Taliban phenomenon and the role of madrasa education with regard to fundamentalism and militancy. As a result, modern education in Afghanistan has not received the attention it deserves.
Although major phases of war in Afghanistan appear to be over, the country is still in a state of conflict. The destruction of infrastructure and public institutions, particularly educational facilities and public libraries, loss and dispersion of human and material resources, and lack of a minimum level of security even in the capital city, Kabul, make the task of searching materials and constructing a comprehensive account of modern education in Afghanistan a daunting challenge. Conducting research in the context of present-day Afghanistan, which is still driven by war and instability, required specific methodological decisions, particularly in relation to collection and analysis of materials, such as the study of documentary and historical sources, and handling of a large amount of both historical and contemporary information from 1901 to the current date. The methodological decisions and procedures which were applied in this study and helped me to write or rewrite an analytical account of the history of modern education in Afghanistan are discussed in the following parts.
Periodization
Periodization in this study plays an important role in relation to limiting the research questions to certain spans of time and determining the beginning and end of each era. The issue of periodization evokes important discussions in historical research, as it questions historians' approach to history. Phillips raises a number of questions about ‘how one decides the beginning and end of a particular period of history; what factors determine it and how it is possible, if at all’ to escape our subjective will and to reach an objective understanding of historical information (2002: 364). In order to narrow the focus of the research questions and to manage the investigation of the research subject, the time scale between 1901 and 2012 is periodized into six smaller units of time. This section argues that the subdivision of historical time in this study was a selective exercise and not an arbitrary one.
There are arguments for and against breaking history into specific intervals of time. For example Inge, in an analogy of writing about a specific period of history, states that it is like walking alongside a river noting its shallows and its rapids, and knowing that we have seen neither the beginning nor the end of its course. Therefore, he believes that sections, regardless of space or time, are purely arbitrary (1922: 8). While Carr does not suggest that periodization is purely arbitrary, he indicates that choosing a specific event or time for historical research is a selective exercise. He states that:
It is the historian who has decided for his own reasons that Caesar's crossing of that petty stream, the Rubicon, is a fact of history, whereas the crossing of the Rubicon by millions of other people before or since interests nobody at all … The historian is necessarily selective. The belief in a hard core of historical facts existing objectively and independently of the interpretation of the historian is a preposterous fallacy, but one which is very hard to eradicate.
(Carr 2001: 6)
Historians' interpretation of the past is an important but embedded part of presenting historical data to the reader. Historians work with events, such as the Battle of Hastings and Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon, which can help them to determine the beginning and end of a period in their historical research. It enables them to manage historical knowledge and present it to readers in a way that contains internal consistency and logical arguments.
Phillips refers to Davidson (1997: 4) and quotes his argument stating that periodization is about understanding the past, i.e. not historians' purely arbitrary decision:
All schemes of periodization are […] unavoidably retrospective: we interpret the past through the eyes of the present. But this is something that historians working on specific topics in the past should always try to avoid: our task as researchers is to understand the past in its own terms. The effect of periodization, however, is to shape our vision of the past in terms of the present […] all the established schemes of historical periodization involve a degree of present-centredness.
(Phillips 2002: 372)
If breaking history into specified divisions of time is about understanding the past and not the historian's purely arbitrary decision, then the real question for the historian is ‘in what respect should the past be approached and understood?’ There is not a unanimous response to it, as historians vary in their views. Phillips' following suggestion recognizes that the practice of arranging history into specific lengths of time is a necessity for managing the vast amount of historical data, and that some principles must apply even if it is the researcher's selective exercise. He states that periodization is:
- to a large extent subjective though it will often be defended in quasi-objective terms;
- [used] to make sense of otherwise unmanageable time spans by identifying unities of some kind; and
- the identification of significant events that may be taken to determine changes.
(Phillips 2002: 364)
Having discussed various views on the division and categorization of history into intervals of time, I will now reaffirm my position that periodization in this study has been a selective exercise and not arbitrary. The central question in this study has been: What shall determine the beginning and end of each period in this study?
Major political events have been used as milestones to determine the beginning and end of a particular era in history. The years between 1901 and 2012 are categorized into six smaller periods. These six spans of time, each presented in a specific chapter (Chapters 3–8), include:
- the emergence of modern education in Afghanistan, 1901–19 (Chapter 3);
- educational modernization, 1919–29 (Chapter 4);
- ethnic politics and selective education, 1929–78 (Chapter 5);
- education, war and migration, 197–92 (Chapter 6);
- educational fragmentation, 1992–2001 (Chapter 7); and
- the redevelopment and reconstruction of modern education, 2001-current date (Chapter 8).
The following example shows how I have worked with key political events that determine and justify the beginning and end of a particular period in history. For example, the first period begins with the accession of Amir Habibullah to power in 1901. Amir Habibullah's accession to power has been chosen as the beginning point for the study, because in 1903–04 he started modern education by establishing the School of Habibia (Habibiya) and supporting it through an organized mechanism that was governed by a Board of Education. The Board consisted of national and foreign educationists who became responsible for the development of a new curriculum and examination system as well as a new management, administration, and teacher training programme. Although a tentative change in education had been made during the second term of Amir Sher Ali's rule, when two prototypes of modern schools had been founded, an organized support mechanism could not be developed because these schools were then destroyed during the Second Anglo-Afghan War (1878–80). By contrast, Amir Habibullah's attempts to start and develop modern education and its support mechanism have survived until the present day and have become the foundation for a modern education system in Afghanistan. Therefore, I took the date 1901, when the Amir succeeded his father Amir Abdur Rahman, as a significant historical event that marked the beginning of modern education. This period ended with the killing of Amir Habibullah in 1919 and the accession of his son Amanullah to power (1919–29). Although my decision for taking Amir Habibullah's accession to power is as selective as Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon, which marked for many historians an important date in history, it is not an arbitrary decision. Similarly, other key political events that brought major political and regime changes in the country have been taken as the determining factors for the beginning and end of all other periods in this study. To sum up, periodization in this study was an important exercise, because it helped me to:
i determine the beginning and end of a particular period in history;
ii manage the analysis of the huge amount of historical information available for this study;
iii present the findings in logical units; and
iv create bounded or embedded units of time, i.e. units of analysis, that contributed to the selection of an embedded, single case study research design, which is discussed in the subsequent section.
The choice of research design
In order to explore the research subject through an investigation of the research questions, ‘how has modern education developed and been influenced in Afghanistan since 1901’, I decided to select an embedded single-case study research design. The form and nature of research questions were the most important elements in the selection of a research design. As it is suggested in research methodology literature, research questions that start with ‘how’ and ‘what’ are exploratory by nature and could be used for exploratory case studies (Yin 2003: 5–6). The ‘how’ and ‘what’ research questions, along with the nature of the ‘case’ in this study, indicate that an exploratory case study is the most suitable type of research design for the purposes of this study.
The case in this study is ‘Education in Afghanistan: Developments, Influences and Legacies since 1901’. It is a single case study which is bounded in terms of the subject (education), geographical location (Afghanistan) and time (1901-current date). In addition, it incorporates logical units (developments, influences and legacies) across the entire timescale from 1901 to the current date that are discussed in each chapter throughout this study. This case also uses embedded units of time which include six periods that were discussed in the previous section on periodization. These units of analysis play a crucial role in limiting the focus of the study, as well as identifying and defining the sources of information. The research subject in this study is, indeed, studied through its units, which creates a consistent link between the units of analysis and the case itself; connections which together build a larger holistic picture of the subject. Since this research subject also embeds logical units of analysis, this study perfectly fits the profile for an ‘embedded, single-case study research design’.
Methods of data collection
Documentary research and semi-structured interviews were selected as the two primary methods of data collection. The period of 1901–2001, which is recognized as the past, was researched solely through documentary analysis, whereas the period of 2001-current date, the contemporary period, was researched through field research that involved the combination of both interviews and documentary research. The application of both methods is detailed in the following sections that elaborate my approach to the classification, access, and sampling of historical and contemporary materials. Methodological issues related to semi-structured interviews will also be covered.
Semi-structured interview
Semi-structured interviews suited the requirements and nature of this study because this study is essentially an exploratory investigation and makes every effort to:
i engage interviewees in an in-depth conversation;
ii encourage them to talk freely and express their views on the interview questions;
iii move beyond superficial topics; and
iv enter the interviewees' domain of knowledge and information in order to explore their views on certain themes and issues related to the research questions and the nature of the research subject.
The questions of who ought to be selected for interviews and how those interviews ought to be conducted were addressed through sampling strategies. The sampling strategy was driven by a simple key strategy: participants who could serve the interests of the research questions and the research subject, rather than giving everyone in the field an equal chance to participate in the study. Based on this strategy, potential interviewees were selected through purposive and snowball sampling strategies. In both samplings, the researcher looked at potential interviewees' quality and relevance to the research questions and subject. The interviewees who were selected through purposive and snowball sampling included civil servants, senior advisers, lecturers, policy makers, exministers and deputy ministers of the two ministries of education and higher education, members of leading NGOs in the field of education, civil servants in the Ministry of Women's Affairs, the Ministry of Information and Culture, and a number people from civic institutions.
Documentary research
In this study I have avoided the conventional classification of documents used in historical research methods, which divides documents into primary, secondary and tertiary materials. Primary sources refer to those materials that are recorded and written by people who were contemporary to the events and actually participated in or witnessed them. Therefore, they are assumed to be more accurate in terms of the writers' memory (time) and their proximity to the event (space). The secondary sources are an interpretation of the primary documents, because the author did not witness the actual events (May 1993: 180; McDowell 2002: 55). In this instance the author interprets and elaborates the account of the original document. Tertiary materials, if used at all, refer to those sources of information that are based on the account of secondary sources.
I have avoided such classification of documents, though it could work for some documentary materials, because the conventional classification cannot be applied to all. For instance, in the context of this study, it was highly questionable whether to treat and classify a news report on the BBC (British Broa...
