Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Live At Daybreak

With Taliban Gone, Schools Once Again Open to Young Girls

Aired April 08, 2002 - 05:50   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.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Now back to the news in Afghanistan. With the Taliban gone, schools are once again open to young girls. There are no desks, no chairs, no electricity, few books and only a few pencils, shortages that seem almost overwhelming.

Still, at one school in Kabul visited by our Walter Rodgers, the girls smile because finally they are allowed to learn again.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WALTER RODGERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Reading, writing and arithmetic, talk to the girls with an Afghan stick. Two weeks into the new school year, Afghan girls still eagerly rush to class a half an hour earlier. But appalling shortages and educational deficiencies cripple learning, the byproduct of the Taliban's Islamist conservatives shutting down education for women for five years.

"The Taliban told us not to go to school. We were afraid, because those who tried to learn were beaten," she said. Only enthusiasm is in abundance. "Raise your hands," I told these girls, "if you're glad the Taliban's gone." Seventy or eighty hands shot up. Liberation, learning and joy.

These Afghan girls are still pious Muslims; they study Islam in school. "And God revealed the holy Koran to the prophet by the angel Gabriel," she recites. Learning is by (UNINTELLIGIBLE) and recitation. Next comes basics, writing. A fifth-grader only now learning her alphabet. Many girls should be grades ahead of this.

Others struggle with math, learning to count. Ten to a million, when it takes one million Afghanis to equal $30 U.S., remembering children do much of the family shopping here. Counting to a million is a valuable skill.

Denied proper education, some girls have a dreadful self image happen. "Boys are better than us because they could go to school and we could not," this girl said. "We sat home for five years and are illiterate." There's no electricity, no light, in classrooms, no desks, no chairs. Dirt floors are watered to suppress the dust.

(on camera): There are terrible shortages in these Afghan schools. So no one's feelings are hurt, some girls get pencils. Others paper; still others, books. Some get milk; others get biscuits. No one gets everything here, but, then again, no one is totally left out nor slighted either.

(voice-over): There is but one five-minute recess in two and a half hours of class. A popular playground game seems to be snatch the head scarf. Another, guess who. Five years of no class created enormous discipline problems for teachers.

"They've forgotten all their manners," this teacher said. "It's very difficult to control the bad behavior of the past five years." Girls did not know initially what to call teachers, so they called them "aunt."

This is the school drinking fountain. There's no school lunch. Yet ask these girls if they'd rather stay home. School, school, school, is the answer.

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