English and IT Open Doors

Ten-year-old Asad doesn’t look any older than his age, but he has already been offered work by several non-governmental organisations, NGOs. His secret? A strong command of English and some computer skills.

Just a few streets away, at 28-years old and with a degree in engineering from Kabul University, Abdul Hadi Shahidzai vainly looks for work in a land trying to rebuild from years of wars.

His problem? No English and little knowledge of computers.

In a country where the two main languages are Dari and Pashto, Asad and Shahidzai epitomise the growing gap between those with a command of English and IT and those without.

“I have been looking for a job for eight months [since graduating] and anywhere I see an advertisement for a position, the most important conditions are that you must know English and computers,” said Shahidzai.

“The result of all my years of study is that I am now washing dishes with my mother at home, sweeping up or helping her with the cooking.”

Asad, a level four student at the private National English and Computer Centre in Kabul, is now expanding his computer skills. He is part of an army of young people who see this as their future.

The centre opens at six in the morning, and Asad arrives to polish his English before going to school for normal lessons, and then returning for computer studies at five in the evening.

“I have been asked several times by NGOs to work with them but I’m too young really, and my family wouldn’t let me,” he told IWPR. Every day outside this and hundreds of other centres in the capital and elsewhere, dozens of students gather in groups, practising their English or discussing computer programmes as they wait for classes where between 30 and 40 students, both male and female, work together.

The centres have mushroomed in the past four years, although some go back much further. The first such school, called Ariana, opened its doors as an English language school in 1971 during the reign of King Mohammad Zaher Shah.

Since the 2001 fall of the fundamentalist Taleban regime, with its ban on educating girls and prohibition of the internet, there has been a huge growth in computer courses. And as most IT lessons are given in English, the two skills go hand in hand.

Today, a total of 760 computing and English language centres throughout Afghanistan are registered with the education ministry, according to Sadruddin Ashrafi, the ministry’s head of curriculum matters. Of these, he said, 235 are in Kabul.

Ashrafi added that the rapid increase of NGOs in the post-Taleban era provided an incentive for young people to take courses so that they could get jobs with the new organisations.

Mariam, a 20-year-old student at the Arian centre, which is separate from the Ariana college, agrees. “Even though higher education is very important, in the current situation learning English and working with a foreign organisation which pays good salaries is more important than anything else,” she said.

Ashrafi believes many more centres exist but are not registered. And he complains that many ignore ministry guidelines for fees – a complaint echoed by some students, including Mariam.

The ministry sets fees for computer courses at three to five dollars per programme, and English class fees at between one dollar and five dollars each term, according to the level. “The fees we have assigned for the courses are based on the regulations but no one takes that into account,” Ashrafi said. Ehsanullah Faizi, a teacher at the National Centre, defends its fees – from four to ten dollars for each student per term to learn English and between six and 90 dollars for those on computer courses.

“Although our fees are not the same as those set by the education ministry, we have to charge more because of our expenses, such as buying computers and study materials, and the high rents we have to pay,” he said, adding that 4,500 students are studying English and computing at the centre.

“Learning English and how to use computers is very important in the current situation because if you don’t know these subjects, you will not be accepted anywhere,” Ajmal, a smartly-dressed 16-year-old student on level two courses, told IWPR.

Young Afghans see the 2,400-odd local and foreign NGOs currently registered in Afghanistan – working in fields as diverse as health, women's rights, education, culture and reconstruction – as a huge source of well-paid jobs.

Those who see a job with the civil service as a more secure long-term prospect also believe they will need English and computer skills, which they think will secure them a better starting salary than the average 1,800 afghanis, around 35 US dollars, per month paid to those without them.

Wali Ahmad Hamidzada, director of the Independent Administrative Reform and Civil Service Commission, says a knowledge of English and computing is beneficial but not absolutely necessary to join the civil service, and does not affect starting salaries.

“Some graduates are applying for senior positions [without any experience] and so they are not hired,” he says, dismissing their arguments that they fail because they do not know English or computing.

At Kabul University, deputy director Mohammad Sediq Azizi says the changing economy will make different demands on business, “As our country moves towards a free market economy, this increasingly points to a need for mastery of English and computer skills.”

At one Kabul-based NGO, the Afghan Women’s Educational Centre, human resources manager Kabir Ibrahimi acknowledges that because of the constant need to deal with donors, anyone without English and a knowledge of computing has little chance of getting a job with his organisation. “People are hired based on their work experience and their English and computer skills in this NGO,” he said. Without these skills, higher education appears to be of little help in the struggle to find work. Shir Ahmad graduated from Kabul University's journalism faculty last year and is still looking for work.

“Even though I know a little English and have some knowledge of computers, anywhere I go for a job they tell me that I must have a complete knowledge of these things. I really wonder what I’m going to do,” he said. Walking with classmates at the end of a lecture at the same university, 25-year-old Farima, a third-year language student, summed up her view on the matter, “Learning the English language means your bread and butter.”

Salima Ghafari is an IWPR staff reporter in Kabul.