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This paper examines higher education in Afghanistan. Based on qualitative research, including interviews with key policymakers and stakeholders, the paper examines the primary issues, challenges, progress, and future vision for higher education in the country. The research reveals that one of the most significant issues in the country in the post-Taliban era is female participation in higher education. It also shows the importance of alternative forms of higher education, such as two-year institutions, private education, and technical/ vocational education. The paper also discusses the emergence of quality assurance mechanisms and international partnerships with other universities. Regarding the future direction and vision for higher education, the paper reveals two primary focuses: preparing students for the labor market, and the potential for education to influence democratic values and social cohesion in a divided country.

The current paper focusses on the teachers' attitude towards and experiences with e-learning tools at two universities in different phases of e-learning implementation. The study population comprises teachers at university level and a simple random sampling method was used. A total of 45 teachers in bachelor programmes from the Faculty of Agriculture of Kabul University (KU) in Afghanistan filled out the survey. For this study, secondary data on Wageningen University and Research (WUR) in the Netherlands was also used from a survey which was recently conducted by Banihashem et al., (2023) in which 307 teachers participated. Data were analysed through descriptive statistics and the two settings were compared in general terms. The results showed that the majority of the respondents at KU and WUR had a favourable attitude towards e-learning tools and that this attitude is an important enabling or disabling factor in the adoption of technology. The findings also indicated respondents' access and facilities, e.g., at KU for interaction with students mainly among teachers HELMS during COVID-19 and for assessment, individual assignments and quizzes were used. Meanwhile, at WUR and mainly among teachers, for interactive purposes Brightspace assignments (and, for assessment, group assignments), Brightspace grades, individual assignments and rubrics were used. Consequently, this research paper will add to the existing knowledge in this area, potentially having a positive influence on the educational sector, because doing so could help the educational system to improve and to better consider the aspects which influence the attitude of teachers that leads to applying a technology. In addition, we recommend more e-learning research studies in Afghanistan in order to find a solution for educating women in Afghanistan.

This paper represents one of the most recent and pertinent studies conducted in Afghanistan, aiming to address the societal imperative of comprehending the factors behind the fall of the Republic government and the subsequent rise of the Taliban to power. Furthermore, the paper seeks to analyse public attitudes towards the current situation. Employing a quantitative approach, the research utilizes a descriptive-analytical method through questionnaires and the participants include social media activist, students and universities professors, the data collected by online survey according WhatsApp, Facebook messengers, telegram, email and other social media groups from different ethnic groups. The findings of this research have identified several pivotal factors contributing to the ascent of the Taliban to power, including the US-Taliban agreement in Doha, Qatar; political disparities; administrative and financial corruption within the Republic's administration; Pakistan's support for the Taliban; the previous government's accord with the Taliban; ethnic dominance; robust military morale of the Taliban; and proficient war management by the Taliban. Afghanistan, as a multi-ethnic society, witnesses political dynamics predominantly rooted in ethnic affiliations. The majority of respondents express dissatisfaction with the current Afghan situation, displaying significant concerns for the populace. Foremost concerns, in terms of prioritization, encompass poverty; closure of girls' schools; restrictions on women's education and employment; escalation of civil unrest; mono-ethnic rule; ethnic conflicts; emergence of ISIS; ethnic marginalization; violations of citizenship rights; political participation and legitimacy crises; and authoritarianism. Consequently, to address the political crisis and establish a viable system, the research concludes that while Pashtuns lean toward a centralized system, Hazaras, Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Turkmens evince greater interest in a decentralized structure.

This paper uses critical discourse analysis and critical literacy to analyze the first in a series of literacy primers developed with US support for children in Afghanistan in the 1980s, called 'Jihad literacy'. The text is analyzed for its ideological content as related to the themes of religion, violence, and martyrdom in the historical perspective of the Cold War and the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan. The paper demonstrates how the notion of 'Jihad' was subverted to promote a holy war against the Soviet invasion. The educational system supported by the US created a radical version of Islam based on violence and martyrdom, shaping the Afghan society to this day. We contend that the same or similar institutions shape current discourses as in the past and that children are the main victims of politico-economic warfare.

Implicit prejudice can be simply understood as any negative feelings or beliefs people hold towards a particular outgroup without being aware of it. One such form is microaggression, which can be defined as everyday verbal or nonverbal subtle, unconscious putdowns, slights, or negative remarks towards members of an outgroup. One of the most common and harmful forms is gender-based microaggression. Gender microaggression is defined as subtle, unconscious, everyday putdowns, slights, remarks, or insults, whether intentional or unintentional, directed at a particular gender, notably women. Despite a plethora of literature and research on gender microaggression, the focus has predominantly been on understanding microaggressions faced by women in various domains, largely neglecting the experiences of men as victims of microaggression. One such overlooked experience is that of Afghan male students studying in universities in Delhi. Each year, thousands of students from Afghanistan travel to Delhi to pursue higher education, often unaware of the prejudices they may encounter due to associations with terms like 'terrorism' or 'terrorist.' Therefore, this paper aims to understand and study the microaggression faced by Afghan male students by employing the Gender Implicit Association Test on a sample of 103 Indian students studying in universities in Delhi, selected using a snowball sampling technique. This study adapts and modifies the Weapon-based Implicit Association Test. The goal is to uncover the implicit biases of Indian students towards Afghan male students by examining the association (reaction time) between images of weapons and harmless objects, in conjunction with adjectives related to Afghan males and Afghan females. In other words, words or images that are congruent in our minds should result in shorter reaction times and fewer errors compared to words and images that are incongruent. The results indicate that Indian students were quicker in associating weapon images with Afghan male adjectives (D = -0.64) compared to Afghan female adjectives (D = 0.89).

Over the last decades researches have been conducted on different disciplines and in teaching English for specific purposes in different contexts, but teaching technical words for doctors in the context of Afghanistan is the newest subject. The aim of this article is to explore the needs of doctors and prepare them a course to learn English. In Afghanistan, English is used as a foreign language and it is not the medium of instruction in the class because the national languages play the key role in instruction. It is really important for the doctors to learn English in order to learn new information and should be aware about progress, especially in medical. At the same time, most of the names of drugs have been written based on English and it is necessary for them to know English in their own discipline. This paper is written based on quantitative research and Questionnaire was the tool for data collection and it was sent to doctors who were in Afghanistan, particularly. In this research, there were 50 participants and out of them 25 subjects were female. In learning English language for doctors, they wanted to memorize technical words that are very important in their daily works. They wanted to improve four skills of English language as well because they need to communicate with their colleagues. This paper ends with significance of technical words for doctors in the context of Afghanistan.

This paper discusses the 'Bamiyan Papers,' also known as the 'Afghan Genizah,' which probably originated in the Bamiyan region in present-day central Afghanistan. Particular attention is given here to their earliest phase, comprising the private archive of Yehuda ben Daniel, a Jewish landowner residing in early Ghaznavid Bamiyan in the first half of the eleventh century, who plays a central role in this study. The archive documents shed significant light on the interaction between an urban private landowner and the rural population, with specific emphasis on his tenants. By closely examining two texts from the archive, this paper illuminates the complexities inherent in the landowner-peasant relationship and unveils the financial connections that existed between urban landowners and peasants. This research thus contributes to our understanding of Ghaznavid rural history and provides insights into the broader context of the pre-Mongol Iranian world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper aims to investigate the impacts of service learning (SL) on teaching sustainability competencies in an undergraduate tourism program at Bamyan University, Afghanistan. This study reports on tourism students' experiences in the SL course which taught five key sustainability competencies (collaboration, values thinking, action-oriented, systems thinking and integrated problem-solving). Design/methodology/approach: This paper assessed students' perceptions of their sustainability competencies gained during the implementation of the course in 2016 and 2017 through focus groups, reflective essays and participant observation. Findings: The results demonstrate how the SL experience led students to self-discovery, strong conceptualizations of sustainability and working relationships with community stakeholders. Originality/value: To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to assess the impacts of a SL course in Afghanistan. The analysis provides valuable information for developing effective higher education programs, relationships of trust between students and community stakeholders and the empowerment of students to contribute to local solutions which serve a role in stabilization efforts in conflict-affected contexts.

This paper is based on the results of an ethnography conducted in the context of several junior high schools in the host community of Iran. It draws on the data collected via observations and forty sessions of in-depth semi-structured interviews with school staff, domestic (Iranian) and refugee (Afghan) students, and their parents. The paper aims to explore the probable impacts of some particular elements on the absorption of refugee students in the host community. These elements included interactions between refugee and domestic students, the role of their parents, and the role of multicultural aspects of pedagogy.

This paper addresses peace education focusing on how place-based experiences and collective memories stimulate local mobilisation for refugees fleeing from war. The Arctic Migration Route, located above 69th degree north, became an alternative to dangerous boat trips on the Mediterranean Sea, for people seeking safety and protection in the fall of 2015. During a few months, over 5,500 people from 35 nations, mostly from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran came to a municipality in north Norway with 10,000 inhabitants. The paper demonstrates how global conflicts far away, have important local consequences across borders and huge distances. Interviews with local authorities, teachers, voluntary workers constitute the main empirical material. By combining theories of place-based experiences and collective memories with phenomenology of practice, geographical location, collective and cultural memories across generations, are analysed as important driving forces for the local mobilization to help refugees. This approach opens for a wider perspective on learning, showing how climate, culture and history have important role as material and sociocultural education in this arctic border region in the north of Norway. Based on empirical data from a small local school, the paper will document how a local community can find solutions to globally produced problems.

The Darakht-e Danesh ("knowledge tree") Online Library is the first open educational resource (OER) initiative in Afghanistan, established to enhance teacher subject-area knowledge, access and use of learning materials, and to foster more diverse teaching methodologies in order to improve learning outcomes in Afghan classrooms. This paper describes our experience developing this local language digital library, buildings its responsiveness to our audience of users as we progressed, customizing both the interface and the resources for Afghanistan's education environment. We innovated methods to devise relevant local content, localized usability, developed different access models to reach different populations of users, integrated impact measurement, and opted to openly license material in the library's collection. By making digital educational content open from the first introduction of digital repositories of learning objects in Afghan languages, we have an opportunity to establish the principle of openness and to promote open practices in teacher professional development in Afghanistan. The paper aims to share lessons on how OER can be customized for multilingual, resource-scarce contexts drawing from our experience to date in Afghanistan, and seeking to contribute to the literature on localization and multilingual OER. [This paper was presented at the "Open Education Consortium Global Conference," Krakow, Poland, April 12-14, 2016.]

This paper reflects historically and contemporaneously on the relationship between 'International Education and Development' actors and foreign intervention in our colonial past and present, with a particular focus on Education in Emergencies (EiE), a sub-field of research and practice within 'International Education and Development'. Theoretically, this work is underpinned by a critical application of the 'implicated subject', Rothberg's (2019) conceptual addition to the study of violence and injustice which seeks to go beyond binaries of 'victim and perpetrator' and recognise the way many others are 'implicated' in systems of violence and injustice. In the first section we explore this framing for researchers and practitioners in the field of EiE and the complex ways that researchers and practitioners might be understood as 'implicated subjects'. In the second part we explore two dimensions of EiE actors as 'implicated subjects': Diachronic and Synchronic. In the diachronic dimension we highlight the way the colonial past hangs heavy in the present and in the synchronic dimension we explore the case of Afghanistan, and the links between military, development and education strategy. In the conclusion we reflect on their implication for improved ethical practices in EiE and in the broader field of International Education and Development.

Due to the intensification of global migration movements, the importance of studies in the field of acculturation has been increasing. In order to develop a healthy adaptation process between the migrant community and the host society, it is especially necessary to conduct studies on the acculturation processes of young migrants. Exploring the acculturation orientation of migrant students in Turkey, one of the leading countries experiencing the migration movements intensively, this study collected data from a total of 110 migrant students, 69 females and 41 males. "Vancouver Index of Acculturation", "Revised Social Contact Scale", "Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support", "Turkish Proficiency Level Questionnaire" and "Personal Information Form" were employed as data collection tools. Multiple linear regression analysis was used to analyze the data. The analyses results revealed that the level of perceived social support of migrant students from their families and the quality of social contact significantly predicted their heritage culture orientation and explained 18% of them. In addition, the quantity of migrant students' social contact and the quality of social contact significantly predicted their mainstream culture orientation and explained 25% of them. As a result, the present study put forth that in order to support the heritage culture orientation of migrant students, the perceived social support from the family should be improved, and the quantity and quality of social contact should be increased to reinforce their mainstream culture orientation and to facilitate the acculturation processes. [This study was presented at the International Eurasian Educational Research Congress (EJER) (7th, Eskisehir, Turkey, September 10-13, 2020).]

This paper uses conversation analysis (CA) to examine telephone conversation openings in an unwritten and understudied language, Rushani, spoken primarily in remote, mountainous areas of Tajikistan and Afghanistan. In a sample of three telephone conversations, examples are sought of the four opening sequences of telephone calls originally identified by Schegloff (1986): summons-answer; identification-recognition; greetings; and initial inquiries. At first glance, telephone conversation openings in Rushani appear to skip over the greeting stage and move directly into an extended exchange of initial inquiries. However, upon closer analysis, it is argued that a Rushani word that translates as "How are you" is in fact used by conversation participants as a greeting. The paper concludes with an argument that the study supports a "universalist" position of CA as applied to calls conducted in languages other than English (Luke & Pavlidou, 2002). Despite their apparent form as initial inquiries, greetings in telephone conversations in Rushani serve precisely the same function and resolve the same "interactional issues" as greetings in other languages (Schegloff, 1986).

This paper considers the utility of critical realism as an ontological foundation for the analysis of education policy in emergencies. By exploring the synergy between critical realism and a method to analyse policy known as Critical Policy Analysis, the paper argues for the use of "conceptual" analytical tools when examining education policy in conflict-affected contexts. It illustrates the value of theory-informed analysis by reflecting on a recent study of Afghanistan's higher education strategic planning, and advocates for critical engagement with broader cultural, political, and economic factors in the analysis of education policies during conflicts and crises.

Purpose: This comparative case study looks towards the diverse approaches of higher education to support peacebuilding, from policy and philosophy to pedagogical practices, in conflict-affected and post-conflict settings. The achievement of global development goals is dependent on addressing access to quality education in conflict-affected contexts, including higher education. However, in settings affected by conflict, higher education is often perceived to be a luxury, not a necessity. This study, then, explores whether and how higher education might support peace and development through the unique perspective of the "three faces" of higher education in conflict contexts. Design/methodology/approach: The paper is designed as a qualitative comparative case study. The research examines the work of university educators in two institutions in Afghanistan and Somaliland, highlighting the challenges and opportunities they face working in conflict-affected societies and their pedagogical responses to conflict. Data for the research were collected through in-depth interviews, documents, and digital artifacts with 12 university educators across the two institutions. The faculty teach a wide variety of subjects in the social sciences and humanities, subjects including and in addition to those specific to peace and development studies. To strengthen the interpretation of data, multiple coders were involved and intercoder reliability was conducted. Findings: Findings indicate a number of challenges and opportunities that university lecturers and their institutions face in teaching for peace in conflict-affected contexts, particularly as it relates to the "three faces" of higher education to support, impede, or reveal the complicated nuances of peacebuilding in conflict settings. Member-checking was employed with participants to enhance the reliability of the analysis. Originality/value: In the end, the paper contributes new empirical insights into higher education in conflict-affected contexts, particularly from the standpoint of faculty. Critical perspectives and implications for curriculum, pedagogy and research are offered.

This paper locates the emergence of critical pedagogy (CP) as praxis in the protest movements in New Delhi, India, against the new citizenship amendment laws that were brought about by the Indian government. The ruling government in India brought amendments to the existing provisions for citizenship, such that persons from Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian religious communities from neighbouring Afghanistan, Bangladesh or Pakistan were allowed Indian citizenship. Muslims, however, were excluded from this. This exclusion, coupled with the national project established for finding illegal immigrants in India -- called the National Citizenship Registry project -- affects the Muslim communities in South-Asia and has been widely resisted across India, by Muslims and other social and political organisations. This paper traces the development of such a struggle in Shaheen Bagh, New Delhi, and proposes that CP as a critique of the social, emerged from the specificity of the Shaheen Bagh movement. Shaheen Bagh gives critical insights into rethinking CP whenever its foundational tenets seem to have been lost or are merely subsumed by disciplinary compartments within academia. This struggle offers us insights toward returning to the insurrectionary character of CP, by locating CP within the context of such struggles. At the same time, this study of Shaheen Bagh and the specific form of CP that emerged in thatcontext, also shows us the limitations of contemporary social movements to take CP to its logical conclusion where oppressive class relations are undermined.

The fatal conceit of foreign intervention refers to the limitations faced by governments using discretionary power to address perceived problems in foreign societies. Drawing on evidence from the "Afghanistan Papers"—a collection of internal government documents compiled by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) and released in December 2019—we demonstrate how the failure of the U.S.-led intervention in Afghanistan to meet the stated objectives illustrates the fatal conceit of foreign intervention. We explore the limitations faced by foreign government interveners in three stages, reflecting distinct decision nodes within a means-ends framework in which the policies relating to foreign intervention are formulated and implemented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Providing access to higher education for people in marginalized communities, in particular for refugees, requires to re-think the traditional ways of teaching and learning in higher education institutions. The challenges of these circumstances both in terms of access to learning materials and the opportunity to collaboratively learn with others require specific support via appropriate didactical settings. Blended learning arrangements, i.e., settings that bring together online learning activities with synchronous, co-located settings show potential for addressing these requirements. In the present study, we examine the success factors in the design of blended learning settings for supporting higher education in marginalized communities. Based on an established model of blended learning success, we explore the specific challenges of the target group via a survey which was distributed to students of different subject areas and of the higher education programs of Jesuit Worldwide Learning. The 80 survey participants analyzed in this paper live in refugee camps, or marginalized areas located in rural and remote areas in Afghanistan, Guyana, India, Iraq, Kenya, Malawi, Myanmar, Philippines, Sri Lanka and Thailand. While we could confirm the success factors that also apply for blended learning scenarios in traditional settings, we also found evidence for the crucial role of facilitation in both, online and co-located learning phases, and challenges regarding the access to suitable infrastructure. Both need to be considered during design of blended learning programs for this target group.

The aim of this paper is to investigate the challenges associated with emergency remote teaching in the developing countries of Palestine, Libya, and Afghanistan, as reported by middle-school students, their parents, and teachers. These countries have been struggling with an unstable and violent situation for decades. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 60 participants from the three countries and 60 online classes were observed. Findings revealed that COVID-19 widened the digital gap among students and families, which created challenges in terms of online class attendance. In addition, violation of students' and parents' digital privacy emerged as another key challenge to emergency remote teaching. However, teacher presence and timely feedback in synchronous online sessions strengthened students' engagement within the emergency remote teaching environment. Overall, emergency remote teaching during the COVID-19 crisis deepened inequities across students and infringed upon the digital ethics of students, teachers, and parents.

This paper argues that part-time adult literacy facilitators (ALFs), who are often employed in large numbers, have the potential to become agents for a wider approach to development, especially through involvement with the adult learning targets of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Drawing on international ethnographic-style research into adult literacy facilitators in Africa and elsewhere, the paper reports the findings of a project examining in depth the profiles of six adult literacy facilitators in Afghanistan. The paper identifies the diversity of experiences they bring to their teaching and their potential for national development goals, and draws some lessons about the training and support systems required to help them become more effective in their teaching. It attempts to provide insights into ALFs in Afghanistan which will be of interest to the international community of academics and practitioners.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to provide insight in how military expeditionary task forces cope with the dual challenge of organizing and learning, by reflecting on the experiences of Dutch expeditionary task forces in post-conflict missions in Bosnia, Iraq and Afghanistan. Design/methodology/approach: This paper reflects on the outcomes of a research project into the experiences of operators of different specific expeditionary task forces of the Dutch Armed Forces in dealing with everyday problems in their working environment. The case studies were based on interviews with military personnel of all ranks and focused on relating the process of making sense of environmental dynamics to characteristics of the organizational context. Findings: The case studies indicate that designing and learning become intertwined in the realities of everyday problem-solving in the more complex missions. As task forces are essentially tailor-made for the purpose of specific missions, units initially need to be selected. Subsequently, the design of the task force needs to be adapted to suit local conditions. This challenge interrelates with the everyday challenge for operators of making sense of their environment and finding pragmatic solutions for the everyday problems they are confronted with. In pragmatically solving everyday problems, operators in the cases engaged in working out incomplete or ill-fitting aspects of the task force design. Practical implications: The findings are relevant for military task forces and in general for organizations that are confronted with dynamically complex environments that rely on temporary structures. Originality/value: Existing literature on learning and on organizing generally treat these as two related, but essentially separate, phenomena. In the expeditionary military task forces, operators that aimed to develop pragmatic solutions to everyday problems, the processes of learning and organizing became intertwined: units needed to organize to learn and to learn to organize. The paper ends by suggesting a combination of specific circumstances that influences the nature of the interrelation between these processes.

COVID-19 has forced educators, institutions, and their staff to switch from physical to remote education This study investigates the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the international education system, particularly in Afghanistan. Specifically, this paper explores how students in Afghanistan have been affected by the pandemic, and identifies and evaluates the challenges faced by the education system of Afghanistan due to the pandemic. Moreover, factors affecting the use of technology by students in Afghanistan are also analyzed. A quantitative research methodology was utilized by collecting responses from students through a questionnaire distributed online. All data collected were subjected to descriptive statistical analysis. Results revealed that technology has not benefited students very much, and the effects of COVID-19 have been extreme on them. Furthermore, insufficient time to learn new technologies has proven to be challenging for students. Developing technology requirements for students during COVID-19 may be an important element of adaptability to the pandemic. Moreover, it was found that Afghanistan already had poor internet and technology infrastructure before the pandemic, which further deteriorated during COVID-19, leading students to experience increasing internet disconnection and costs and decreased communication with teachers. Effective strategies to deal with these problems are discussed.