School Management Shura for Girls' Education in Afghanistan

Historically, girls' education has been problematic in Afghanistan, where girls' education was challenged or even banned by many groups of people and regimes. Recent years have seen significant improvement; starting with one million boys and no girls at school after the fall of the Taliban in 2001, the Afghan education system grew ninefold and now has close to nine million children enrolled, 39 percent of which are girls (MoE, 2017a). This achievement is far from complete. There are still approximately three million girls out of school (MoE, 2017a). The Afghan government and its partners have planned many projects and initiatives to address this issue. One of them is community mobilization through the establishment of School Management Shuras (SMS). There are more than 16,000 shuras registered with the MoE. However, not all of these SMSs are active. In this study, I propose that SMS can be an effective way to bring more girls to school and to improve girls' education overall. It has been argued that community organizations such as SMS can be specifically effective in promoting girls' education in more conservative and traditional societies such as Afghanistan. However, the SMS needs support to become an active agent. Research on SMS in Afghanistan, and similar structures in neighboring countries, suggests that such supports can be provided to SMS through training and clear plan on roles, responsibility, and authorities. Moreover, there is a need to know more about SMS and how they function and support girls' education. This knowledge may help understand how the government or other partners can strengthen shuras and increase the number of active SMSs. Therefore, this qualitative single case study explores the experience of a successful SMS that has been able to promote girls' education in their community. In this study, I explore how the SMS improved girls' education and what challenges it faced. The findings of the study are divided into three sections. The first group of findings shows how the SMS improved girls' education through different activities they carry inside and outside the school. The second group of findings looks at factors that enable the SMS to carry the mentioned activities and, thus, improve girls' education in their community. Finally, the third group of findings looks at challenges that the SMS faces while working for girls' education.