Page 20

to other categories of schools have been made; 27 regular and 175 village elementary schools were established during the past year. One of the main aims of elementary education is the combating of illiteracy. This campaign is carried on through courses of adult education. 20 new courses of adult education were launched last year. The High Council of Education also passed regulations promising cash compensation to all those persons who help in imparting literacy to illiterate adults. Primary education plays an important rôle in the implementation of the Community Development Project; this rôle is played through Community Schools. 144 of these schools were established in model villages last year and enthusiastically acclaimed by the people. The school building is also used as a place where villagers congregate to hear lectures on health and social and educational subjects. In the field of secondary education a middle school was raised to the level of a secondary school and three new middle schools were also established. The class-sections are also steadily increasing in number. The establishment of new school departments and their development are based on the Five-year Development Plan and have been successfully accomplished. In vocational education, too, certain new departments were established but no new schools were opened. Teachers' training schools in the provinces reached the second- or third-year stage and their hostels took on a more organised form. The schools of mechanics at Kandahar and Khost have made noteworthy progress during the past two years inasmuch as the third-year course is being launched this summer. Courses of bricklaying and carpentry launched in Farah some years ago have been brought together in the form of a middle school because of their success. Their syllabuses have been organised on the pattern of the School of Arts in Kabul. A Department of Weaving was added to the Arts School in Kabul. Until now its programme prepared students for life as an artisan. Early this year the second part of the programme, relating to the finer arts, came into being. A Department of Painting and Ceramics, on a comparatively higher level, was established. Ninth Class school graduates manifesting outstanding capacity in art were enrolled in this department. The Correspondence School, which had been scrapped a few years before, was reopened under the title of "Correspondence and Clerical School," so that the needs of the Ministry of Finance and other accounting departments could be met. (G) Extra-curricular Activities: Since all educational affairs in Afghanistan are conducted and financed by the State and all expenses for school and extra-curricular activities are also shouldered by it, therefore everything relating to it, whether undertaken by non-governmental organisations, persons or individuals, must be done through the proper departments of the Ministry of Education. Some of these activities include sports, the Boy Scouts' Association, exhibitions of art and paintings and knitted and embroidered articles (by girls' schools), etc. The Directorate-General of Sports of the Ministry of Education, in addition to assisting other departments of education in the preparation of sports programmes and procurement of sports equipment, also supervises the arrangement of sporting tournaments in every school and educational institution. The Directorate-General is directly concerned with raising the standard of sports in the country and, therefore, exerts a valuable influence upon 17