Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Saturday Morning News

More Than 1 Million Afghan Children Attend School Today

Aired March 23, 2002 - 09:07   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: It's Saturday, and any American school kid's favorite day. Why? Because school's out for the weekend, of course. But in Afghanistan, it's the first day of school. More than 1 million children, including girls, filled with class -- filled in the classrooms, and for them, it was a cause for great excitement.

Here's CNN's senior international correspondent, Walter Rodgers.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WALTER RODGERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): No one speaks at breakfast in this Afghan household. Everyone is too tense. This is the first day of school. For many young Afghan girls, it is their first schooling ever, because the radical Islamist Taliban forbade any education for women.

For days, Rahima's (ph) household buzzed with anticipation. This 35-year-old mother of six said she has been so excited, she could not sleep. Educating her daughters is her life goal.

"I could not go to school, and I have suffered. I am illiterate. It is like being blind," she said, adding, "I don't want my children to be like me."

Her daughter Fatima studied secretly during the Taliban's rule, taking a terrible risk. "I was afraid they might have whipped and flagellated me."

Eight-year-old Zenib (ph) has never been to school, but secretly learned to count.

Now the moment of truth for millions of Afghan girls off to school. Fatima is 14 and, like many Afghan women, still cautious, wearing the blue burka in this religiously conservative society. No one knows what will happen at the Manuchuri (ph) Girls' School, grades one through 12.

A teacher instructs the girls they must do their best because they have to make up for five years of lost schooling. The headmistress courageously declares, quote, "This is a day of joy for Afghan women." In her words, "After a period of imprisonment and darkness, the school doors have reopened." (on camera): All morning, Afghan mothers and daughters poured into this school yard as if they had a terrible thirst for learning over the past five years which only now could be quenched.

(voice-over): Illiteracy in Afghanistan is about 95 percent, and mothers are bitter at the way the Taliban cheated their daughters.

"If our children could have gone to school, my daughter would be in the sixth grade. Now she is 12 and in the first grade," she lamented.

Applause, forbidden by the Taliban, is OK now, secular patriotism replacing Islamist fundamentalist doctrine. Thirty-five hundred girls showed up this first day at just one school. Teachers were overwhelmed. The school runs in three shifts. There are barely enough textbooks for half these students.

Still, nothing -- not mud, not even this ill-tempered woman with a switch -- could take away the joy of this day.

These Afghan girls would not be silenced again, as they sang of their country reborn.

Walter Rodgers, CNN, Kabul.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com