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Rebuilding schools, rebuilding Tajikistan
(CNN) -- The Japanese embassy has only been open less than two years in the capital of Tajikistan, Dushanbe, but it already realizes the importance of education in rebuilding this war-shattered country. The Japanese have just given Tajikistan, the poorest of the 15 former Soviet republics, more than $37,000 to equip a secondary school, according to Russia's Itar-Tass news agency. This is likely to be welcome news in a country where schools are in a desperate state. Class enrolment is also dropping while the dropout rate is rising. More than 400 new school desks, as well as furniture and equipment will soon arrive at the building in the Kofarnikhovsky region, which has already been repaired with $116,000 of the embassy's money. Even though five years have passed since the 1992-1997 civil war, the country of five million has barely recovered and remains volatile. When 500,000 Russians, some of whom were teachers, left during the civil war they also took with them their skills. Education is hard to prioritize in this mountainous Central Asian country that borders Afghanistan. The average salary is only $13 a month and 90 percent of the population remains in poverty. A crippling drought in 2000-2001 and a series of natural disasters has also devastated the largely agricultural economy. Here poverty dramatically affects schools and the numbers of children that attend them. Impoverished families are unable to afford textbooks while even footwear and clothes are beyond the reach of many so children can attend school. A shrinking educational budget, low salaries, deserting teachers and a lack of textbooks have also taken their toll on the country's educational system. Not to mention the physical deterioration and poor state of its school buildings. Female education is also vulnerable. Rural girls over the age of nine have a poor attendance record as parents prefer to keep them at home. Yet over the last few years Japan's allocation of more than $2 million to 52 social welfare projects including education has been a welcome source of investment for Tajikistan. "We are glad that joint efforts of the Government of Tajikistan supported by the people as well as support of the Government of Japan for the process of social and economic recovery of the republic are bearing fruits," Koichi Miyoshi of the Embassy of Japan in Dushanbe said earlier this year. However, it is an uphill struggle and donor organizations are realizing that peace and stability are tied in with education. UNICEF already prints and distributes peace education textbooks. The world children's body is also providing basic learning supplies, clothes and shoes for up to 36,000 children, equip 300 schools and train 900 teachers. It is working to enhance parent and teacher participation and mobilize communities in more than 100 districts.
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