Flashy “secret schools and organisations” in Afghanistan are being promoted as avenues of hope, but many of them exist only on paper or cater exclusively to the privileged, according to Jill Suzanne Kornetsky, an American social entrepreneur who has lived in Afghanistan since 2015.
“The same old elites are up to their same old tricks and it’s siphoning money out of the country the same way it always did,” Kornetsky told StratNewsGlobal. She said many of these elites act as each other’s recommenders and references to validate their initiatives.
Several of the so-called “secret schools” are in fact “one of the most expensive private schools in town,” Kornetsky said, noting that they are inaccessible to Afghanistan’s poor and rural population, which makes up the majority of the country. She added that such ventures divert attention and resources from initiatives that genuinely help rural communities.
In rural Afghanistan, Kornetsky said, secrecy is a myth. “If one person knows something, the entire village knows, the most indiscreet culture I have ever lived in, and they know what is going on.”
She explained that many home schools exist in rural areas, often organised in all-girl groups in private homes. “They are not some covert operation,” she said, adding that these schools avoid Taliban interference by keeping a low profile.
Kornetsky cited organisations such as the Lamia Afghan Foundation and a network of volunteer-run home schools, including those taught by foreign volunteers, as examples of initiatives that genuinely provide education to rural children. These efforts, she said, have successfully advanced girls’ education.
“They quietly but not secretly operated,” Kornetsky said, stressing that in addition to the Taliban, “many conservative elements in Afghan society do not appreciate it when such things are made a public spectacle.”
Criticising initiatives she described as performative, she said: “Much back patting, many conferences, and the rest is just a game.”
(This article was written by Tisya Sharma, she is an intern at StratNewsGlobal)
