The paper is structured as follows. The next section reviews the analytical framework and the datasets we use in this paper. The following section presents key summary statistics on education, both on the supply and demand side. The fourth section presents our empirical estimates of enrollment correlates in rural areas. The final section concludes with a summary of findings, recommendations, and suggestions for future analysis. | ARTICLE IN PRESS International Journal of Educational Development 28 (2008) 419–434 Back to school in Afghanistan: Determinants of school enrollment Stephane Guimberta, Keiko Miwaa, , Duc Thanh Nguyenb a The World Bank, 1818 H Street NW, Washington, DC 20433, USA Faculty of Economics, National Economics University, Ha Noi, Vietnam b Abstract One of the first achievements of post-conflict Afghanistan was to bring almost 4 million children back to school. Issues remain daunting, however, with low primary enrollment especially for girls and in rural areas and very weak learning achievements. We review some key features of the education system in Afghanistan. By matching household and school data, we assess the impact of various factors on enrollment. Overall, the analysis indicates that further increasing supply alone is unlikely to lead to higher enrollment. The analysis confirms the importance of demand factors such as the education of parents, the family language, and other community and ethnic factors. r 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: International education; Development; Education policy; Post-conflict; Demand and supply of education 1. Introduction Promoting education ranks very high among the stated top priorities of the new Afghan Parliament Members (Wilder, 2005). This is understandable given the critical needs of a country where almost 80% of the population is illiterate. Education is central not only to the growth and poverty reduction agenda, but also to the empowerment, democratization, and governance agendas. In fact, primary and secondary education (9 years) is a constitutional requirement (Article 17). At the same time, attacks and death threats on schools and teachers are becoming frequent, turning ‘‘playgrounds into battlegrounds’’ (The Guardian, 2006). This highlights, in a Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 202 473 1000; fax: +1 202 522 2102. E-mail address: kmiwa@ (K. .
