Kandahar University:
Kandahar University is a government funded higher learning institution in Kandahar, Afghanistan. It is one of two universities in southern Afghanistan. Kandahar University was established in 1991, at a time when the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) was in power under President Mohammad Najibullah. The university has 11 buildings, some of which may need renovation. Kandahar University provides areas of study in Agriculture, Medicine, and Engineering. The institution currently has an enrollment of 1,124 students, with only about 30 being females and the rest males.
The Mosque at Kandahar University
[edit] Overview
In an article for Windsor Star and CanWest, Doug Schmidt revealed the horrific conditions at the institutions. The college, where Osama once trained his jihadists, is filled with gutted classrooms. The older students teach the younger ones because the only poorly paid teachers who are there are the ones who can't find something else that pays a liveable wage or they're old and must stay or risk losing their eventual government pensions. The university lacks power and plumbing, has no library or laboratories, and the country's future doctors, engineers and teachers who study here have no computer access. Multi-millions have been committed to Afghan education, but there are no signs, five years after the Taliban government was evicted, that much is reaching these two institutions[citation needed] [1] The living conditions at the university dorms would be intolerable to any western student. The structures of the University are weak and unsafe.[citation needed] The university is far behind the universities of the north because of the violence and lack of funding.
[edit] Medical School
On this campus, as apparently at all others in Afghanistan, no one is allowed to open up and scrutinize the human corpse, forbidden under the local interpretation of Islamic law. At Kandahar U presently, 13 women are studying medicine. None lives in residence, although a separate female dormitory had been constructed. In their final year of instruction, med students intern two days a week at Mirwais Hospital for hands-on patient experience. The Canadian Provincial Reconstruction Team has donated computers – and, allegedly, a generator – power, electricity and water are sporadic. Lack of power often means classes in the medical faculty are suspended.
[edit] Controversy
In an article in Asia Times, it was revealed that ISI, Pakistani intellegience agency, was planting special operatives in the student body of Kandahar University. The article stated that it was part of Pakistan's slow process of taking control over the Pashtun territories. It is no secret that there is a large number of Pakistani students in Kandahar University. In this possible Pakistani operation, these students can also provide information to Pakistani officials, while affording the government in Islamabad plausible deniability. [2]
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