Returnees want their children educated

JALALABAD (Pajhwok): Afghan repatriated families in eastern Nangarhar province have expressed concerns about the education of their children and asked government to provided education facilities for their children.

Abdullah, one of the returnees, said that he lived in Peshawar city and his three sons were studying in schools there. He said that his children’s education left incomplete after returning to Afghanistan.

Abdullah said: “The education system here is different from the education system in Pakistan, we can’t decide what to do about the education of our children here, our children endured many hardships to learn something there.”

Khyali Khan is another repatriate, who just returned from Pakistan’s Panjab province and ended his life as refugee.

He said his children were minor but next year they will be eligible to be enrolled in school.

He told Pajhwok Afghan News ‘Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) government must provide their children education facilities because they could not send their children to schools in Pakistan, it is a strange country but here they are committed to educate their children.

Eid Mohammad, originally hailing from Ghazni province is another repatriate, said he lived in Islamabad. He said due to poverty he sent his children to religious schools.

He asks the government to provide both religious and scientific education facilities for their children.

Mufti Habib Hazrat Haqqani, the provincial Education Department Director, said that all the returnees’ children will be provided education facilities in Nangarhar province.

He said, with the support of some humanitarian organizations, stationery items are being distributed to repatriated children in Torkham. Some children who studied in Pakistan and want to resume their education here would be provided the examination facility on the bases of which their knowledge level would be decided and referred to the classes.

According to Haqqani, if a considerable number of returnees live in a camp, they will be provided education facilities and a school will be established for them.

The government of Pakistan has warned all Afghan refugees in that country to leave that country or they will be evicted by force.

The official figures shows, so far 50,000 families have returned to the country through the Torkham crossing.

Aw/nh