Manama: Turkish President Abdullah Gül is expected to visit Afghanistan in spring to officially open 68 schools built by Turkey.
The schools are part of Ankara's multi-dimensional aid programme for Kabul that encompasses education, health, agriculture and human resource development, the Turkish Daily News reported, quoting unnamed sources.
Afghanistan's education minister Faruk Wardak said that his country was keen on learning from Turkey's religious vocational high schools. ‘By learning from their experiences, we will be able to achieve a balance in our own Islamic education system,' he was quoted as saying.
"The modernisation of Islamic education is one of the most crucial issues. I visited a few imam-hatip schools in Ankara and saw that they give a balanced education. Sixty percent of their curriculum is normal education, 40 percent is Islamic. I have asked Turkish officials to establish some imam-hatip schools in Afghanistan," said Wardak.
The Afghan official said that his country would also benefit from Turkey's experience in promoting girls' education.
"We would very much like to use Turkey's experiences in overcoming the gender disparity in education. We have requested that they establish some girls' schools in Afghanistan. Hopefully this will help us overcome gender disparity in the education system."
Under a new proposal, Afghanistan's university students will be given a higher number of scholarships to study in Turkey.
"Currently, they are providing us just 40 scholarships per year, but I have asked to see whether this number could be increased to 200. These are the areas that, in principle, we have agreed upon."
A total of six Afghan-Turkish schools, including one girls' high school, are currently open in the country. According to Today's Zaman, the high schools in Shibirgan, Mazar-e-Sharif, Kandahar and Heart for boys, and in Kabul for girls, operate under the title "Afghan-Turkish Schools." The first school was opened in 1995.
