The Function of Schooling in Afghanistan - An Analytical Perspective

The school function was under great historic discussions and changes in Afghanistan; among these changes, a common pattern emerged - the transformation from one form to another, which laid the ground for conflict between radical, authoritarian, and progressive elites. Each group had a vision for education that was relevant to the function of Afghan society and, largely, to the social order that would best serve their interests.

Among the progressive elites who emerged in the early 20th century, they viewed schools, as Carney (1974) theoretically framed, as a means "to transform societies from feudalism and traditionalism to capitalism." The Afghan progressive elites who asked for reforms considered schools as transformative institutions that would change traditionalist Afghans into more modern and progressive, and from non-skilled feudals to more capable and potentially empowered ones. This was essential for the kind of society they envisioned, which they urged was important to form to maintain sovereignty and development for independence.

The counterargument came from the radicals - both religious and traditionalists elites - who maintained particular interests in the current form of society and the power dynamics that were created. For religious radicals, the current form meant maintaining a monopoly on education in its traditional forms by continuing to restrict education within the domain of religious education. For traditionalists, while confirming the religious radicals' prospects, they also found their interests in the arrangements and fabrication of feudalists and traditionalist political order in society - as they would often receive non-critical and more obedient subjects in their ethnic settings. For the radicals, in addition to internal arguments, the external part of schooling as a colonial agenda implemented in neighboring India was used as a counterargument, and they considered the functionality of modern education as the expansion of foreign ideas, Western thoughts, and eventually the colonization of Afghanistan. This argument, however, was countered by progressives who used the same argument that traditionalist society is the ideal form for hosting colonialism, and the country's backwardness would eventually make it easy for colonists in South-East and North, the British and Russia, to colonize Afghanistan, as they had already declared the country a buffer zone that prohibits modernization.

Both had a common counterargument against the progressive elites that put them - both parties - at opposite aisles in Habibullah Khan's court.

In the 1930s, after the defeat of the progressive elites by the radicals, the new order shaped Afghan society, which was an authoritarian order that presumed and rejected both forms and found middle grounds in the decades to come in a gradual manner that moved society from traditionalist to modern, but within parameters crafted by the rulers. Under this arrangement, which was implemented until the 1978 coup d'état, the rulers, by large, would have found it embedded in the fact that their approach to schooling would be a mix of traditionalist and modernist flavors within the board of authoritarianism; modernism shouldn't irritate the radicals. Under this prospect, schools functioned to produce capable and skilled Afghans to contribute to the government's developmental plans and to importantly transform the Afghan society slowly.

Many would see this functionality for education at the level that happened during the mid-20th century as gradual and helping society in a way that didn't draw clashes - this group saw social resistance as a factor, which is a topic of great debate and can't confirm the facts. Education had one resistance, and it was from the radicals; the masses of people had little to no idea about the institutions of modern education and would mostly either not oppose nor support, and a portion who would be besieged simply through the propaganda happening through the radicals.

The other era starts with the Soviet invasion, where the function of education changes both from progressive elites' modernization and radicals' religious traditionalists to a new and different front; the propagation of communism, and on its opposite; the radicalization of education. It was centered against the capitalist function of education as Carnoy (1974) had framed, which tied schools as transformative institutions that transform humans "from ignorance into intelligence, human labor could be transformed from unskilled to skilled, from having a feudal outlook to being rational and competitive, from being socially dangerous to being orderly." By receiving schooling, people could improve their market 'worth' from very little with no schooling to high earning capability with large amounts of schooling. Thus, the transformation of unskilled man into a valuable input for the capitalist production process became an important function of schooling in capitalist society.

Under the communist regimes during the 1980s, they sought that schools be a transformative force toward the social order and power hierarchy that the Soviet had asked based on the idea of communism. As Carnoy (1974) again frames it well, this was to be the kind of arrangement for the communist with his conceptual view that schools should "colonize knowledge perpetuates the hierarchical structure of society. As long as people thought that schooling did the things that the authorities claimed it did, it was hoped that they would not try to change the schools."

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References:

Carnoy, M. (1974). Education as Cultural Imperialism. United Kingdom: D. McKay Company.