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CNN Saturday Morning News

New School Year Begins in Afghanistan

Aired March 23, 2002 - 08:34   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 an important day in the lives of schoolchildren across Afghanistan, particularly the girls. Now that the fighting has eased and the Taliban are out, today is the start of the new school year.

CNN senior international correspondent Walter Rodgers is in Kabul with the latest on that.

WALTER RODGERS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Kyra, Afghan education went public again, at least for the young girls of this country. In previous years under the Taliban, indeed, for the last five years it was against the law to educate young women. Now, there were some private schools, underground schools, secret schools where some families were able to get their daughters educated. But the vast majority of young Afghan girls under the Taliban were denied any education at all.

One woman today told me that she had a 12-year-old daughter who, because of the Taliban, was only able to start in the first grade today. A headmistress at another school we visited told us that this is a day of joy for Afghan women because, she said, Afghan girls can now come out of confinement, can now come out of the dark corners of their home because the school doors have reopened.

We should point out there was enormous joy in the playgrounds and in the classrooms of Afghan schools today, the girls' schools. The reason, of course, being that the young women of this country now feel a new sense of freedom and at least see the road ahead to empowerment. We might also add there was a good deal of confusion today, in many of the schools more confusion than education, the reason being there was no way to estimate how many young Afghan girls would be returning to the schools for the first time in five years. One school we visited had 4,000 young girls show up and there was no way they could accommodate them. They only had textbooks for about half those young women. The real classes, of course, will begin on Monday of this coming week -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Walter Rodgers, thank you so much.

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