As Afghan school downs shutters, pupils left in lurch face uncertainty

Everything was going well at the school... It was a tiny school, and we had no space to play football or tennis but it was still a lot of fun. Now there's no school and no fun," said a morose 14-year-old Yosuf Noor.

- Sadia Akhtar

He is one of the 180 Afghani students who went to the Sayed Jamaluddin Afghan school in Bhogal-till it shut doors over 20 days ago.

A Class 8 student, Noor came to India from Kabul with his parents and siblings in 2019 in a bid to find a safe home. In 2020, he enrolled in the school in southeast Delhi the only one for Afghani students in the Capital.

The school was set up in 1994 by an NGO, and till 2021, the rent of the school building, salaries for teachers, and even books were taken care of by the Afghan government. After the collapse of the Ashraf Ghani regime and the return of the Taliban, the embassy stopped receiving funds from the new dispensation. Months later, the Indian government stepped in to help run the school.

The school, which did not take any fee from the students, was starved of funds and had to move out of its original location in Bhogal to a cramped eight-room apartment in the same area.

The 180 students and 15 teachers faced another crisis this month people familiar with matter said on Friday that Afghan diplomats appointed by the previous government decided to close the embassy's operations from October 1. However, external affairs ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi told a media briefing that the embassy continues to function.

Raheema Waheedi, the school principal, said, "The school was driven to closure after electricity was cut off due to non-payment of bills. The school was supported by the embassy of Afghanistan here but they stopped responding to our requests beginning of the year."

She said that the embassy has not paid teachers' salary for the past eight months and rent has been pending for three months.