India's role important in developing Afghan education: Wardak

From Lalit K Jha
Washington, May 31 (PTI) Observing that India's role
is "extremely important" in development of education sector in
Afghanistan, a top Afghan official on Tuesday said that Kabul
is negotiating with New Delhi to establish an information
technology college in the war-torn nation.
Highly appreciative of the hundreds of scholars being
provided to students of Afghanistan by India, Afghan Education
Minister Farooq Wardak said the Karzai Administration is
looking at additional resources to send more Afghan students
to India as this is the need of the hour for his country.
Currently visiting the US to hold talks with American
officials and the World Bank, Wardak said he would urge USAID
and the Education Secretary during his meetings to allocate
special funds to provide scholarships to Afghan students to
study in Indian educational students.
"That is something in my mind, which I would be
discussing with the Education Secretary Arne Duncan and
USAID," Wardak told PTI.
He argued that it would be too expensive to have
Afghan students in the US for scholarship.
"Also the fear is that these people would not return
to Afghanistan, some of them would wish to settle here in the
US. So in order to prevent that worry it is always better to
train them in India, it is cost effective, it is good quality,
it is easier for us because the language and culture is
friendly to the people of Afghanistan and they are not
stranger in India," he argued.
India's role is extremely important in the development
of education sector in Afghanistan, he said.
"We are very thankful to the great Indian nation,"
Wardak said, referring to the over USD 2 billion Indian aid to
Afghanistan in the development of Afghanistan.
"This is the support that the Afghan nation considers
as a very high support. There are about 2,000 students from
Afghanistan who are studying in Indian universities and
colleges. Another 500 Afghan students would be going very soon
to India," he said.
"Recently I received the first batch of 75 teachers
who were sent to Mysore and Delhi for training. Last week I
recruited all of them as teacher, school administrator and to
the most hard reach areas of Afghanistan. So these are the
support which everybody knows, everybody speaks very high of
the Indian contribution and to the overall development of
Afghanistan, particularly the education sector," he said.
Observing that India is a country with which Afghans
have a lot of similarities and cultural ties, Wardak said
expectations are too high from India, the world's largest
democracy.
"They support institution building in Afghanistan. Not
only there are a number of Indians, very big number of
Indians, they are recruited as advisors, as specialists, as
assistants in numerous government institutions, there would be
hardly any government institution where there are no Indian
expert working in Afghanistan," he said.
He said the President of Afghanistan from his special
account allocates USD 5 million every towards imparting
education to Afghan students in India. This is in addition to
the scholarships being provided by the Indian Government.
"Our President has requested the Prime Minister of
India to, in addition to the scholarship that the Indian
government has provided to Afghanistan, this will be on our
pay that more Afghan students would go to India for higher
studies," he added.