Teacher's Day was celebrated in both sections of the Vocational Training Center on 15th October2014.

Training Center and schools remain open on Teacher's Day and students celebrate with gifts, presentations and programs arranged for their teachers.

The plight of Afhanistan's teachers is untold. The country has the lowest salary for teachers in the world. Compared to other professions teachers are amongs the financially worst hit people of the society. A teacher's salary in Afghanistan is about 5000 Afghanis (100 USD). Apart from this fixed salary teachers are suffering in several ways, from lack of attention from the government to serious problems such as killing or kidnapping by opposition groups like the Taliban. For the last five months the Government failed to give salaries to majority teachers across the country.

On the other hand, such a serious issue has never been highlighted in the media; neither the concerned quarters northe Education Minister bothered to notice the issue.

The financial troubles aside, most teachers across the far-flung rural parts of the country are untrained and non-professional; most have not completed their school graduation.

 

At present there are 217,000 teachers teaching 11,000,000 students. (6 milions of students are unable to go to school in unsecured provinces.) Because of the lack of professional teachers the student's level of education is very low. the Government pays little attention in this regard. professional teachers that complete  their graduation with an education degree from Kabul University are reluctant to join the unattractive profession in the country, where they are not paid salaries for months.

Officials of the Education Ministry are attending symbolic celebrations in Kabul every year. They make some speeches, praising teachers and their role in society, but nobody speaks of the troubles teachers are facing in Afghanistan.

The new President Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai has promised to provide housing for teachers. We will have to wait and see whether this promise comes true this time or whether it is just like previous ones.

The difference between teachers in government schools and the Vocational Training Center is that the teachers in the Vocational Training Center are fully respected, paid on time and receive other additional support from OPAWC's office.

The students were happy and praised their teachers through speeches, poems, flowers and gifts.