EDUCATING THE AFGHANS

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27638, 20 April 1955, Page 7

EDUCATING THE AFGHANS

Christchurch Man’s Assignment

MODERN TECHNIQUE INTRODUCED

A Christchurch school inspector, Mr E. D. Hill, has been responsible for the introduction of improved teaching methods in the schools of Afghanistan. His mission for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, as advisor to the Ministry of Education in Afghanistan, began in November, 1952. Since then, a new philosophy of education has been put into practice in Afghan schools. In 1952, education officials had already decided to train more teachers for the country’s schools, and also to change teaching methods. As in many other countries, pupils learned by memorising their textbooks and reciting them back to the teacher in order to pass an examination at the end of the school year. Passing this examination was important. If a school inspector asked a pupil a question on what had been taught for an examination already passed, the pupil had the right to refuse to reply. Mr Hill, who was a lecturer in New Zealand and is a graduate of Auckland University College, decided to emphasise what he calls “the active side of learning,” in which pupils participated in lessons instead of acting only as containers for words. A three-week course for school inspectors was held in January, 1954, at Jelahabad. They travelled 90 miles to the course from Kabul, where schools close during the three cold'months from December to March. In Jelahabad, where schools were still open, practice classes were conducted.

It took a week of argument before the inspectors were willing to work with Mr Hill and his assistant aqd convert, Abdul Ali. Then, in the prac-

tice classes, the droning recitations were replaced by lively lessons in which teaching aids awakened the interest of seven and eight-year-old pupils. Afterwards, Mr Hill returned to the teachers* training college in Kabul, and the inspectors went back to their own districts, where the change began in the old teaching methods. Mr Hill, who is on leave from his job as an inspector of schools, is the second New Zealander to carry out this kind of work for UNESCO. The first was Mr Thomas Wilson, principal of the Ardmore Training College, Auckland, who headed a mission to Siam.