From 1933 through 1973, education improved in Afghanistan under King Shah, and nearly half of children under 12 attended school. Beginning with the Soviet invasion in 1979, however, 30 years of war has virtually destroyed the Afghan education system as schools were damaged in the fighting, and teachers either fled the country or were killed. When the Taliban came to power in 1996, education was banned for women, even though by 1988 women comprised 40% of the nation's doctors and 60% of the faculty at the University of Kabul. Under the Taliban regime, the madrasa became the required source of education for boys, where they learned about Islam but little else, and were often instructed in guerilla fighting tactics in preparation for Taliban conscription or encouraged to become suicide bombers.
The Afghan constitution now guarantees the right to an education for all citizens, whether male or female. The demand for education, however, far exceeds the capacity of the school system. Although schools are slowly being rebuilt, the Taliban burned 150 schools in 2009 to prevent girls from attending. There is also an acute shortage of qualified teachers, and those who do teach are often either underpaid, or not paid at all. Many serve as untrained volunteers, and simply do the best they can, often teaching up to 150 students per teacher in tents and other open structures.
More than 6.2 million students now attend Grades 1-12, the largest total in the history of Afghanistan. Approximately 2.2 million are girls, marking a significant improvement over the 520,000 female students enrolled before the Taliban takeover. Despite these gains, however, 57% of the total population and 86 % of women remain illiterate. Afghan funding for education is extremely limited and because most of the funds come from external donors, effective budgeting is impossible. In many rural areas, cultural limitations on mixed gender education further limit access to education, so that Afghan boys can anticipate only 11 years of formal education, while Afghan girls will receive just 5 years of schooling.
