Afghanistan's war is killing its students, and its whole education system

The National

The graduation of each and every one of the more than 50 pupils killed on Saturday in a car bomb attack outside of Kabul’s Sayed Al Shuhada secondary school should have been a crowning achievement for Afghanistan.

They are not even the first victims of such an attack this month. On May 1, another car bomb exploded outside a guest house in Logar province, where a group of students was staying after having travelled to the capital to sit their university entrance exams.

As Afghanistan prepares to enter a new phase in its history – one marked by the accelerating withdrawal of US forces and their foreign allies – one of its greatest tests will be sorting out the vexing riddle that paralyses its education system and, with it, the country’s hopes for prosperity.