AFGHANISTAN'S government is trying to harness parent power in a desperate bid to stop the Taleban burning schools and murdering teachers.
Education chiefs are using dedicated parent-teacher associations to guard schools against the Taleban, after record Nato troop levels and billions spent rebuilding the police have failed to curb attacks.
About 300 schools were burned last year an
d more than 500 remain closed because of insecurity, while dozens of teachers have been killed.
In the past three weeks alone, at least ten schools have been torched and in one incident police said a guard had his ears cut off by the attackers.
But government insiders now claim thousands of schools have remained open thanks to vigilante mobs of angry parents.
The ministry of education said 9,600 schools are being protected by parent-teacher groups, despite suffering almost 2,500 attacks in the last two years.
"Parent power is exactly what it is," said Suleman Kakar, a senior education aide. "We bring parents, teachers and key people in the community together to agree to protect the schools."
The PTA protection councils are meant to give rural communities a reason to support the Afghan government.
Schools in remote parts often serve more than one village. In the school shuras or councils, villagers agree to provide a quota of night watchmen.
While one secondary school was razed in the centre of Logar province last month, another was saved by a gang of fathers who scared the arsonists away.
The head of the local PTA, Basir, said a group of armed men approached a co-ed primary school for more than 600 students after midnight.
He said: "They had guns and petrol to burn the school. But the guards saw them and started shouting. Everyone came out of their houses and when the terrorists realised, they ran away."
There has been a sharp rise in attacks on schools since the new term started on 23 March, prompting fears that the Taleban are returning to a 2006 campaign to cripple the education system.
In the northern province of Kunduz three schools were burnt in the last three weeks, two in Kandahar, and one in each of Helmand, Paktia, Khost, Wardak and Farah provinces. In the two years to February at least 235 teachers, students and education workers were killed and another 222 were wounded. "Insurgents attack schools because they represent the government in rural areas," said the ministry of education's chief protection officer, Shaifullah Shafi.
Education officials have not armed the PTA councils, but government insiders admit most villagers have access to guns, although they stress many of them are relics.
Handing responsibility for security to local communities comes amid controversial British plans to recruit former Taleban fighters to guard their homes against insurgents from outside Afghanistan.
The full article contains 469 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
