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PROPOSAL:

MASTER TEACHERS BY SATELLITE FOR AFGHANISTAN

To supply by satellite television an elementary school & literacy education for every little girl and little boy in Afghanistan who does not have a regular school, including in rural areas where distance and dangerous

conditions still obtain, and to provide literacy training for adults who desire it.

A PROPOSAL TO FILL, WITHIN SIX MONTHS TO A YEAR, THE UNMET NEED FOR LITERACY AND FIRST TO THIRD GRADE TEACHERS

IN AFGHANISTAN FOR THE NEXT TEN YEARS

I Problem: An acute shortage in Afghanistan of teachers and elementary schools, particularly in rural areas and especially for girls.

The adult literacy rate in Afghanistan is 43% and, for female adults, it is 14% (UNICEF, Attachment A). An estimated 1.2 million girls, who should be in primary school, are not. (Id.)

This shortage has been well recognized. UNICEF, together with the Afghanistan Ministry of Education, has attempted in the past two years to create “community based schools” (CBS) in rural villages (Attachment B). There are over 2,600 of these CBS in rural Afghanistan. But they are little more than a package of notebooks, literacy texts and pencils, presided over by a marginally literate local volunteer, attempting to teach reading and writing to children.

International charities have constructed a few schools in rural villages in Afghanistan. But even as we write this, schools in Afghanistan are being burned and destroyed, including

those recently constructed by international charities in rural areas. This tragic situation has been aptly described by Tamim Ansary: “Many groups set out to build schools in rural areas, because they saw the struggle in

Afghanistan as a battle for hearts and minds: they saw that young people growing up unable to read and cut off from information about the larger world were locked into a sort of prison, defenseless against Jihadist propaganda injected into their milieu by stateless thugs.” . . .

“These are the schools now under attack by local reactionaries, by drug lords’ henchmen, by cross-border terrorists, by stateless militant international revolutionaries eager to drag Afghanistan (and the world) back to an invented past, by the whole kit and caboodle the media usually lumps under the single heading of “Taliban”—a misnomer because it suggests an organization with headquarters and leaders, whereas, in fact, “Taliban” increasingly refers to an ideology, a social movement, a historical current.” (Attachment C is the full text of this Letter; Tamim Ansary is an Afghan-American journalist and the author of West of Kabul, East of New York.)


II Review of Possible Solutions:

a) More local, rural teachers and schools – but: Training teachers takes years. Village children, particularly girls, cannot travel to central schools because there are no roads, no vehicles, and ample danger. And the very act of teaching now invites attack.

b) Attract teachers from outside Afghanistan, from Iran or Pakistan, or returning refugees – but even these fully trained teachers, themselves Afghans, cannot be sent into danger.

c) The UNICEF-organized Community Based Schools (CBS) in rural villages – but although creative, this program is essentially just giving books and pencils to students without the teacher to engage, motivate and help them.

d) None of these are real-time solutions. Therefore please consider the following proposal.

III The Master Teacher by Satellite Proposal: Solving Literacy and First through Third Grade in 6 to 12 Months, and for the Next Ten Years.

(1) Identify one of the best working teachers in Afghanistan for each level, literacy and first through third grade, one in each grade, at the best public schools in Kabul.

(2) Broadcast -- for the two hours of 10:00 AM to 12 noon every day, 6 days a week, 40 weeks a year, on one of each of the existing five satellite channels -- a master teacher teaching, with extensive complementary audio-visual aids, in literacy and grades one through three. This is known as “distance learning”, and is a rapidly growing educational phenomenon throughout the world. (Broadcast time is one of the 3 largest components of the budget for MTSA. The Afghanistan national satellite T-V station, Radio Television Afghanistan (RTA), has already committed to provide this broadcast time as an in-kind contribution to MTSA). (Attachment D, commitment letter from RTA).

(3) The broadcast must adhere closely to the prescribed curriculum as approved by the Ministry of Education, focused particularly on reading and writing and numbers. Complimentary to the traditional teacher, the broadcast shall include the full range of audio-visual resources available, giving preference to locally produced material specific to Afghanistan. (Production of this 480 hours of teaching content is one of the 3 largest components of the MTSA budget). (Attachment E is an example of the preliminary script for one proposed daily 15 minute literacy segment, based on a beloved Afghan comic figure, Mulla Nasrudin, plus pages from the official literacy curriculum. See also Budget, II-C.)

(4) Each school and every home in Afghanistan with a T-V must be able and permitted to receive the instruction lessons, absolutely free.

(5) Each school room or village anywhere in Afghanistan without a certificated teacher shall be provided with a TV and satellite dish, a receiver and a solar power cell, sufficient to receive the programming. The MTSA will incorporate and build on the over 2,680 Community Based Schools (CBS) developed by UNICEF and provincial Ministries of Education in rural areas of Afghanistan. (Installation of this equipment in the villages in one of the 3 largest components of the budget for the MTSA Project).


In addition, there will be a half-time teachers’ aide to supervise the students before, during and after the instruction. Each class will be supplied written materials, paper and pencils.

(6) If as anticipated there is no school building, the students and aide and the equipment can be accommodated in a private house of one of the students, or a shed or a tent. In many public city schools now operating in Afghanistan instruction is outdoors because of a lack of classrooms. The children sit on mats in whatever shade is available. The UNICEF staff on the Community Based Schools (CBS) for the Central Provinces of Afghanistan has agreed to identify the 100 village CBS which might be appropriate for the MTSA pilot project. (Attachment F is an unofficial Report on the current state of the existing Community Based Schools.)

(7) The private satellite channels will be asked to donate two hours per day, and also be asked to contribute to the cost of making the reception equipment available to every school or village that needs it. Reception in the private and government sectors to MTSA has been extraordinarily positive. Another TV channel, just getting started, has already endorsed the MTSA and offered assistance, and government agencies have indicated their support. (Attachment G). Still to be negotiated, of course, is the final approval of the Ministry of Education, which cannot occur until a fully developed educational content is in place, which cannot occur until funding is found for producing it.

(8) The video teachers shall assign homework to be collected by the teachers aide, and also shall suggest additional school work for the students, such as art projects, reading books of social sciences, natural sciences, literature and history, and, as required in Afghanistan, religion.

(9) How can the program avoid the problems of undesirable material or even pornography being seen by children? Built into the T-V and the receiver box at the factory shall be a chip which will guarantee that the reception on the equipment shall be limited to the educational material prescribed in this program. This will avoid the problems of parental control, as well as the unauthorized use of the equipment. This will also make the equipment not worth stealing, as it cannot be used for any other purpose.

(10) In summary, the program will deliver the literacy and first to third grade curriculum of the Afghanistan Ministry of Education to presently unserved students, using an innovative model of combining the following tried and tested methodologies: the standard curriculum, a teacher’s aide, and modern audio-visual educational programming which will motivate, inform and instruct the students.

IV Follow-up On The Basic Program

(1) The broadcasts shall be recorded, both at the studio and at each class site. At the village or remote class site, each recorded two hour unit can be replayed for the same or a different set of students (for example, for older boys in the first morning class, then girls, then younger boys in the afternoon, or for adults in the evening).

(2) In the year following the first year, the daily tapes can be edited, and the best elements saved to make an official tape version of each class, for each day of the school year.


(3) In the year following the first year, in addition to the edited tapes, the MTSA Project or the Ministry of Education can produce manuals for training, and instructions and materials to go with the tapes.

(4) Even though there are tapes, live broadcasts and production of new content should be continued as well, so as to allow tapes with both female and male instructors, and Dari, Pashto and other languages. (By the time all of these variations have been completed, it may be time to start the series again because times and the official curriculum may have changed.)

(5) As sophistication of the technology advances, each day’s T-V and instructional program can be stored on a web site and ordered as desired, e.g., choosing the class for the second Tuesday in April, a class would be able to choose a lesson in Pashto directed to boys, or in Dari to girls, etc.

(6) Because the video instruction received will be recorded on the equipment at the village site, even in the first year, if there are enough students, classes of girls and boys can be taught separately, with, for example, the girls receiving the broadcast in the morning and the boys then watching it in the afternoon.

(7) For each up to 30 students in the class, a half-time assistant teacher or teachers’ aide would be hired. These aides need not even be literate, as their job is discipline and to follow the spoken instructions of the on-screen lessons. (The aides may not know the material initially but will be able to learn it with the students.)

(8) At least one person in the local village or school must be found who is sufficiently literate that simple attendance records can be kept. If at all possible, some one somewhere in the area should also be found who is technology literate with access to a computer and e-mail. The tech aide can fix simple equipment problems, email questions to the central staff or to a master teacher, and deliver answers. Common queries can go to a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) computer web site.

(9) How can the homework and tests of the students in this remote distance learning program be corrected and graded? In a more perfect world, traveling master teachers of the MTSA Project could travel around the country, meeting students and aides, answering questions, and reviewing homework. That is not feasible in the present unsettled state of the countryside.

(10) But even illiterate and uneducated aides can receive homework and sort it into a file for each student, essentially vouching for the quantity, even if not the quality, of each student’s work. Later on, when a fax machine and satellite cell phone can be added to the project’s equipment, the aide may be able to fax tests to the Ministry of Education or the MTSA Project for correction, or receive a correction sheet for correcting multiple choice tests, such as in math.

(11) As the program gets more sophisticated, some of the techniques used by commercial and university distance learning programs can be adopted, including direct e-mail questioning by the students, video conferencing, and live chat between students and a master teacher. The day’s assignments for each day may also be stored on a web site to be accessed selectively as the program matures.


(12) The above plan works for math, reading, science, geography, history. There are some special cases, for example writing composition, however where other solutions are needed:

(a) high tech: have the students write their papers, then fax or scan and upload for review at a central site, or

(b) low tech: use local literate volunteers, or (c) when it becomes possible: have traveling master teachers.

(13) Parent participation: In addition to the aides, and even though probably there is no custom of parent participation in education, this could be developed. It would require first an educational program directed at parents, to encourage them to participate, even if they are themselves illiterate, in the education of their children. The school could “tax” each parent ½ day per semester to work at school, doing teacher aide work, or even more basic work like building desks or providing lunch.

(14) In upper classes, variations on this plan can also be tried -- with a different master class program for each subject, maybe adding foreign teacher volunteers for language and computers.

(15) Possible Funding Sources – Public: United Nations, UNESCO, UNICEF, Ministry of Education regular budget of the Government of Afghanistan, and Appeal to donor nations which prize education, especially Japan, Germany, USA. Private: Foundations, individuals and companies with an interest in education, technology or Afghanistan. MTSA has already submitted one proposal for a portion of the project to the UN Democracy Fund, which is pending

A proposal byMASTER TEACHERS BY SATELLITE FOR AFGHANISTAN

A project of the World Family Development & Educational Program, Inc, An IRS recognized 501(c)(3) California corporation, Tax ID # 93-1048117

68 Ramona Av, San Francisco, CA 94103 -- Rev. 061009 415-861-5802 800-815-8103 Fax 415-522-1933

www.afghan-satellite-teachers.net [email protected] office c/o NOOR EDUCATIONAL CENTER 011-93-70-280-675

Project Director: CAROL RUTH SILVER

Attachments:

A. UNICEF Schools Survey for Afghanistan 2006 [see pdf file and Attachment G below]B. Community Based Schools (CBS) program of UNICEF & Ministry of Education [see pdf file]C. Tamim Ansary letter on Schools in Afghanistan [below] D. Commitment Letter from Radio Television Afghanistan (RTA) General Director [see pdf file] E.-1 Sample screen play for Mulla Nasrudin series [below] E- 2 Example pages from new Literacy Textbook from

Afghanistan Minister for Functional Literacy [see pdf file] F. Endorsement Letters [see pdf file] G. Unofficial report on Community Based Schools [below]

ADDENDUM ATTACHMENTS (Not included in the pdf file)Attachment H. Template for eight 15-minute segments in 2 hours [below]Attachment I. Contest for Mulla Nasrudin scripts [below]


mailto:[email protected]

http://www.afghan-satellite-teachers.net/

V Budget BUDGET

Rev 6 September 2006FOR

MASTER TEACHERS BY SATELITE FOR AFGHANISTAN (MTSA)

ITEM IN KIND DOLLARS TOTAL

I. Fixed costs for broadcasting A. Broadcast time: 10:00 a.m.-12:00 noon,

six days a week, 40 weeks per year, = 480 hours @ $1000 per hour (estimated value). Radio Television Afghanistan (RTA) has committed to this contribution = $480,000

B. Ancillary equipment necessary at RTA $15,000

C. Editors and producers, 3 person team at RTA @ $850 per month per person inclusive of benefits x 3 = $2,550 x 12 = $30,600

Totals$480,000 $ 45,600

II. Fixed costs for programmingA. Audio-visual materials: Acquisition and modification of

existing available educational content for use by MTSA Project, on vendor and independent contractor basis (cost to be determined)

TBD TBD

B. Professional Teacher frame for audio-visual content

B-1. Stipend to part-time master teachers for advise on content and filming of their activities as teacher, $100 per month X 12 months = $1200 X 5 = $ 6,000

B-2. Camera crew, 2 persons, half day, 6 days, 40 weeks, @$500 per month each, X 12 months = $12,000

B-3. Director half time @ $500 per month X 12 =

B-4. Script Writer @ $400 per month X 12

$ 6,000

$ 4,800

Sub total personnel $28,800

B-5. Additional personnel costs (taxes, insurance, etc.) estimated @ 20% of personnel costs =

$ 5,760


IN KIND DOLLARS TOTAL B-6. Editing tapes, one tape per Class = six per week X 40 weeks =240 X 5 = 1200 tapes to edit @ $5. per tape (independent contractor basis) =

$ 6,000 B-7. Camera, boom, mike, lights, computer aid, at rental value = $200. per month X 10 = $2,000. X 5 =

$10,000 B-8. Tapes—-six per week @ $5. per tape = $30 per week X 40 weeks = $1200. X 5 =

$ 6,000

Subtotal Sec. II-B costs (EXCLUDING AUDIO-VISUAL CONTENT COSTS WHICH ARE TBD AS THE SUBJECT OF THIS PROPOSAL)

. $ 85,360

C. Mulla Nasrudin literacy series – The first 15 minute segment of each programming day will be a newly created series, to be shot at the studios in Kabul of Afghan Film, featuring beloved Afghan comic character Mulla Nasrudin teaching literacy (letters, numbers, reading and writing, up to the full first grade level). Following is the budget submitted by Afghan Film. Note that it is on a per-segment basis,.

C-1. Personnel: actors, including Mulla Nasrudin, his wife, his donkey, villagers, boys, farmers, etc. $ 5,000

C-2. Personnel: crew, including Director, script writer, camera man & assistants (2), sound recorder & assistants (2), light men (2), production manager & assistant (1), editor & assistant

$ 5,700

C-3. Music background $ 300

C-4. Equipment: including camera Sony HDV, booms and mike, Dado light, HMI light, reflectors, and computer system G5

$ 1,400

C-5. Property for use on set $ 2,000

C-6. Other miscellaneous costs, including transportation, food, etc. $ 1,500 Subtotal Sec. II-C costs for each Mulla Nasrudin segment For 240 segments at this cost =

$15,900 X 240 = $3,816,000


IN KIND DOLLARS TOTAL

III. Cost for placing video & receiving equipment in villages

A. Equipment

A-1. One large-screen T-V, delivered and set up $3,000

A-2. Satellite dish, delivered & set up A-3. Receiver box (with limiting chip to exclude non-educational programming)

$ 300

$ 200

A-4. Subscription for 1 year to satellite service @ $50. per month X 10 months = $ 500

A-5. Solar panel (if sufficient, and if not, generator), delivered & set up =

A-6. (Fuel for generator @ $10. per month, if needed =)

$ 2,000

$ 100

Subtotal, equipment for one village $ 6,100

<Amortized equipment over three years = per year> < $2,033 >

B. Other Costs

B-1 Space costs - home of village resident @ $100. per month X 10 months = $1,000

B-2. Books and supplies, $5. X 30 students per year = $ 150

B-3. Teachers’ aide, six days per week, 10 months, $30. per month = $ 1,500

Subtotal, one village, one year, additional costs $1,000 $ 1,650

Total, one village, all costs, first year of installation of equipment and operation of class

For pilot of 100 schools in first year =

$1,000

X 100 =

$100,000

$ 7,750

X 100 = $ 775,000

<Per year with equipment amortized over three years = $2,033. plus books and personnel @ $1,650. per year = per school per year>

<For 30 students with 3-year amortization of equipment = per year per child>

< $3,683 >

< $ 123 >



IV. Administration and technical support A. Technical support

A-1. Information Technology backup, one tech support person full-time @ $500.00 per month X 12 months = $ 6,000 A-2. Tech support by cell phone, two full-time @ $300. per month = $600, X 12 months =

$ 7,200B. Financial and management

B-1. Bookkeeper part-time @ $180 per month X 12 months = $ 2,160

B-2. Audit monthly (by CPA or CPA-equivalent) @$200. per month on contract X 12 = $ 2,400

B-3. Evaluation: Project overall, including Master Teacher and quality of video content, on yearly contract

$ 20,000

B-4. Data collection by phone weekly and compiled, one staff @ $100.00 per month X 12 months =

B-4-a. Cell telephone costs $30. per month X 12 months =

$1200

$ 360

Subtotal = $ 39,320

V. Program management

A. CEO-Salary to be determined or: $72,000

B. CFO-Salary to be determined or:

$96,000

C. Allowances & expenses for professional staff, including housing, benefits, moving costs to Kabul

$60,000

D. Travel costs estimated 8 trips at $6,000 each $48,000

E. Secretarial staff, 3 @$120. per month X 12 months =. $4320

F. Office space @ $500. per month = $6000

G. Office costs, supplies, phone, etc., estimated @ 300. per month X 12 =

$3600

Subtotal Management (EXCLUDING AUDIO-VISUAL CONTENT COSTS WHICH ARE TO BE DETERMINED AS THE SUBJECT OF THIS PROPOSAL) =

$ 289,920

TOTAL PROGRAM COSTS (EXCLUDING AUDIO-VISUAL CONTENT COSTS WHICH ARE TO BE DETERMINED AS THE SUBJECT OF THIS PROPOSAL)

$580,000 $5,051,800


SUMMARY OF BUDGET FOR MTSA (INCLUDING YEAR ONE

INSTALLATION OF EQUIPMENT AND DEVELOPMENT OF PROGRAM

CONTENT)


Sec I – Fixed costs for broadcastingBroadcast time 2 hours a day, 6 days a week, 40 weeks a year – contributed by Radio Television Afghanistan (RTA), valued at $1,000 per broadcast hour

$480,000 $ 45,600

Sec II – Fixed costs for programming A.. Cost of production of educational content or modification of existing content, SOUGHT AND TO BE DETERMINED ON THIS APPLICATION.

TBD

B. Master Teacher video frame, shot in Kabul$ 85,360

C.. Mulla Nasrudin literacy segments, 15 minutes each day X 6 days a week X 40 weeks = 240 at $15,000 each, shot at Afghan Film in Kabul

$3,816,000

Sec III – Cost for placing video & receiving equipment in villages

Each Village = $7,750 X 100 in initial pilot plus contributed space in village

$100,000 $ 775,000

Sec IV Admin and Tech Support $ 39,320

Sec IV – Program management $ 289,920

TOTAL PROGRAM COSTS (EXCLUDING AUDIO-VISUAL CONTENT COSTS WHICH ARE TO BE DETERMINED AS THE SUBJECT OF THIS PROPOSAL)

$5,051,200

As Revised 23 Sept 2006


SELECTED ATTACHMENTS (see pdf files for the additional attachments):Attachment C: Tamim Ansary letter on Schools in Afghanistan Attachment E.-1 Sample screen play concept for Mulla Nasrudin series Attachment G. Unofficial report on Community Based Schools

ADDITIONAL ATTACHMENTS (Not included in the pdf file)Attachment H. Template for 240 two-hour programs, each of eight 15-minute segmentsAttachment I. Contest for Mulla Nasrudin scripts

==============================

Attachment C: Tamim Ansary letter on Schools in Afghanistan

Afghanistan Needs Attentionby Tamim Ansary

Someone is setting fire to schools in Afghanistan, yet hardly anyone seems to know about it. With the media spotlight on Iraq, the Afghan story is receding into global amnesia, but something is coming to a head in Afghanistan, and Americans need to pay attention.

Four years ago Afghanistan seemed poised for recovery. There was chatter about a “Marshall Plan for Afghanistan.” The country teemed with enthusiastic optimists eager to start rebuilding. Afghans abroad partnered with Afghans inside the country to launch little organizations such as Afghan Friends’ Network, Afghans for Tomorrow, Partnership for Education of Children of Afghanistan, and Green Village Schools. Many groups set out to build schools in rural areas, because they saw the struggle in Afghanistan as a battle for hearts and minds: they saw that young people growing up unable to read and cut off from information about the larger world were locked into a sort of prison, defenseless against Jihadist propaganda injected into their milieu by stateless thugs.

But the war kept percolating. A U. S. force of about 18,000 bogged down in the south, fighting an ill-defined enemy. Reconstruction money trickled in slowly. Of the nearly $5 billion that has come in, most has gone to foreign contractors for big-ticket projects such as roads. Sadly, foreigners working in Afghanistan have driven up prices, while Afghan government officials have gone on working for wages scaled to the local economy. Senior civil servants make less than $120 a month, government doctors only about $50. Corruption has become endemic, as how could it not. And the Afghan poor have seen little change.

Out in the countryside, the soil remains loaded with land mines. Farmers can clear only small amounts of tillable land, since they risk limbs and children doing this work. On these small patches, they can’t grow enough wheat to survive, so they grow poppies. Afghanistan now leads the world in opium production, but this crop links peasant farmers to a global criminal market, which brings in thugs with guns. Of these, Afghanistan has a plentiful supply, left over from the war: petty commanders reporting to bigger commanders, a new feudal order stretching into Pakistan.

This is the backdrop against which idealists are trying to educate rural Afghan children, so they won’t grow up vowing to kill Americans. These are the schools now under attack by local reactionaries, by drug lords’ henchmen, by cross-border terrorists, by stateless militant international revolutionaries eager to drag


Afghanistan (and the world) back to an invented past, by the whole kit and caboodle the media usually lumps under the single heading of “Taliban”—a misnomer because it suggests an organization with headquarters and leaders, whereas, in fact, “Taliban” increasingly refers to an ideology, a social movement, a historical current.

Whoever they are, these Taliban are zeroing in on schools because they’re soft targets, full of children. Over the last year, violent assaults have forced some 200 schools to shut down in the south. A high-stakes race has been in progress in Afghanistan since the Taliban fled Kabul, a race between chaos and order. The forces of chaos bank on creating enough anxiety and despair to make ordinary Afghans citizens lose hope in a peaceful future and pick up guns for self-protection. They know this will lead back to the anarchic world of all-against-all.

Hope for a civilized future lies, by contrast, in nourishing enough growth, laying in enough stability, to make joining a civil process a smart choice for sensible people. Enough people joining this process can move the country to the opposite tipping point, to a tidal movement toward order and a peaceful future.

The chaos mongers have an easier job because breaking anything, killing just anyone, abets their cause. People pledged to peace have the steeper hill to climb, as always: they must work tirelessly for rewards that may not show for years—and convince others to join in. This takes a stubborn optimism about the worth of human endeavor against all reason—in short, it takes faith.

In Afghanistan teachers and students have embodied just such faith by manning the front line in the struggle between chaos and order. These teachers are the uncelebrated heroes of our age, and so are the children who trudge to school each day to study sums and letters, science and history. Which of us does not remember nodding off over these subjects in our own school days? In Afghanistan, these subjects can get you killed. Just last January, in Zabul province, thugs dragged a teacher into the courtyard of his home and cut his throat before the shocked eyes of his wife and children.

U.S. policymakers pursuing a war on terror punish “evil-doers.” This medicine itself becomes the illness as new “evil-doers” emerge to replace each one killed. I don’t say that Afghans need no military protection. Unfortunately they do. But they need more.

Pakistan helped plant the original Taliban in Afghanistan, and they continue to enable troublemakers who burn schools. The international community led by the United States must pressure that country to shut down bases and drug labs in Pakistan, seal the border, end the raids.

Second, the reconstruction effort should be vastly expanded. Landless tenant farmers who make up the bulk of the Afghan population worry about this year’s drought and next year’s crops, catastrophic earthquakes and winter blizzards, polluted water and fatal diseases felling their children.

We can support schools by surrounding them with a larger package that includes programs to clear land mines, restore irrigation systems, replenish herds, provide farmers with seed, build and staff clinics, and provide micro-loans for local business ventures. Thugs who attack isolated school may promote their violence in a clash-of-civilizations framework; let’s see how they sell their case when any assault on a school is also an assault on clean water, bountiful crops, flourishing herds, and healthy children.

But reconstruction must be real, not cosmetic, for this to work. The Afghan government has no resources for this job, and neither do the little NGOs that have built schools. Donor nations must come in—that’s us. Let’s ask our representatives to redirect U.S. foreign policy toward today’s most crucial priority: becoming The Good Guys. It’s not only the right thing do to, it’s self-defense. Let the United States find


ways to give the poorest peasants in places like Afghanistan a stake in an emerging civil order, and we’ll see the power of reactionaries wane as the people themselves oust all who march under the Taliban banner.

25 May 2006 ===================================


Attachment E.-1 Sample screen play concept for Mulla Nasrudin series, by MTSA staff

SAMPLE SCREEN PLAY CONCEPT: MULLA NASRUDIN AND THE LOST LETTERSTime: 15 Minutes

The Mulla, a famous philosopher and religious scholar, rides on his little donkey along a path in Afghanistan toward a rural village, with two big sacks. He meets 3 boys about 6 years old, and stops to talk about the fact they have no school. The Mulla turns around to get something from his sack, but drops the sack and -- in a burst of light, it turns into a burst of letters, scattering the letters.

Focus is on some of the letters which make up one or two familiar, simple words, such as, for example, "man" and “run”, or "go" and "stop".

The children offer to look for the letters and return them to the Mulla. He promises he will show them how to read and write each letter.

But wherever the letters have fallen, they begin to grow, and grow, and grow, until they are taller than a child. So the kids need 2 or 3 to cooperate in hauling the letters back, one by one. The Mulla scolds the letters, puts his hand on the top of each letter, and squishes it to the ground. He then picks it up and puts it back into his pack.

This scenario gives the opportunity for slapstick-type comic events, as well as for a lesson in cooperation, and as well keeping the image of each letter in front of the eyes of the children so that they can memorize it.

As to writing the letters, the Mulla addresses the 3 boys and, at the same time, looks straight into the camera and addresses the audience as if they were in the studio. He gives each of the 3 boys a pad of paper and shows them how to write the letters. Then he asks them to write the letters 3 times, while he is watching them. He turns to the kids in the TV audience and asks them also to write the letters 3 times. He asks them also to promise to write 3 lines of letters as homework until the next day.

(Compare here the Blue’s Clues children’s series where the “Steve” character addresses the video audience directly.)

Once the Mulla has found all of his lost letters, and the children have written them three times, the Mulla gets on his donkey and leaves. A final comic bit: on the rear end of the donkey, the children have written the letters.

---------------------------------------In another attachment is one of the little Mulla Nasrudin tales which might be the theme for another program, a story called "His need is greater than mine." A crow stole the soap from the Mulla's wife as she was washing the Mulla’s cloak, and the Mulla’s response was: “ Look how black is his cloak – his need for soap is much greater than mine.” This offers the common words soap, hand,


fly, etc., and a lesson about charity and forgiveness. The letters could drop off the soap and float down to earth like a kite, or else perhaps splash into the wash basin.

----------------------------------------

Also in another attachment are pages from the newest Afghanistan literacy text book approved by the Deputy Minister for Functional Literacy of the Afghanistan Ministry of Education. The original is in full color, glossy paper, very sturdy. This is the curriculum which must be covered, all of it, although not necessarily in the same order as in the book. .

=============================================


Attachment G. Unofficial report on Community Based Schools

REPORT 1 April 2006 by staff of MTSA on

COMMUNITY BASED SCHOOLS: A UNICEF INITIATIVE WITH THE GOVERNMENT OF AFGHANISTAN

TO

BRING SCHOOL TO VILLAGE CHILDREN WHO CANNOT GO TO SCHOOL

When UNICEF Afghanistan set up a Regional Team for the Central Provinces of Afghanistan, one of the top priorities was the challenge of finding a way for girls in rural areas to obtain the basic education which is their right, and which is taken for granted in urban and more developed areas of Afghanistan and the world.

Actively denied the right to learn during the Taliban era, the girls are still being denied education because of safety concerns: kidnappers, land mines, suicide bombers, roving terrorists. What parent would let a little girl walk for hours every day from a rural village to a Provincial school house? Even if there was a Provincial school within walking distance? And mostly there are not any such schools.

Boys as well as girls in the rural areas are being kept within the confines of their homes and villages, for even though they are continuing to lose precious years of learning, at least they are not losing their limbs, or their lives.

So if the children cannot go to school, can school come to the children?

In 2003, UNICEF helped the Government of Afghanistan, under its “Healthy Schools Initiative,” to establish the first of what are now some 2,688 Community Based Schools in rural villages in Afghanistan. Some 55,344 little girls are attending these schools, and an equal or greater number of little boys. Many more such classes are planned.

The UNICEF Task Force published the criteria for establishing new Community Based Schools (CBS) as follows:

- CBS should be considered in places where girls and boys do not have access to formal schools or NGO [Non-Governmental Organization] run schools because of distance.

- The distance should be at least four kilometers from formal school or the distance between the formal school and the village is not safe.

- The community should be interested and show readiness for establishing CBS.


- Number of children 7-12 years should be above 30 children in the village. (The number of children = population of the village X 0.20.)

- The priority should be given to girl children.

- The community should provide the learning space and identify the teacher for CBS and more emphasis should be put on female teachers.

- The community should ensure the security of the children and the school.

- The community should support the teacher.

- Written agreements should be signed between DEO and the community council.

- The community/Shura should actively participate in school activities.

- The identified teacher should be committed to teach the children.

- DEO should collect information about the NGOs working the district.

Each village Community Based School is provided with school materials as well as literacy and elementary school text books. The teacher is not paid by the government but rather represents the contribution of the village to the program. The teacher is required to have an educational level of at least sixth grade, but if no one in the village can be found, then the village Mullah is tapped to teach the children.

Of the first set of approximately 200 Community Based Schools in Ghazni Province, according to Dr. Nik Mohammad Attaie, Assistant Project Officer, Ghazni, of the UNICEF Afghanistan Central Provinces Task Force, one or two Community Based Schools in larger villages graduated to become real schools with a real teacher, while one or two failed. In 2005, another approximately 300 Community Based Schools were started, so that Ghazni had approximately 500 such schools as the Afghan school year began in March 2006.

One key element of the Community Based Schools program is its adherence to the established and approved curriculum of the Afghanistan Ministry of Education. This will permit children enrolled in the program to move on to regular schools when that opportunity comes.

In the meantime, Community Based Schools are filling a great need. Although they are a small (but a rapidly growing) portion of the estimated 5.1 million children enrolled in school in Afghanistan, they are crucially important because they represent a whole generation of rural dwellers who will otherwise be denied even the most rudimentary education.

“Every child has the right to learn, and no child learns alone.” UNICEF: Advance Humanity.

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Attachment H. Template for 240 two-hour programs, each of eight 15-minute segments

TEMPLATE FOR240 TWO HOUR PROGRAMS

FORMASTER TEACHERS BY SATELLITE FOR AFGHANISTAN

Summary:

One minute: TitleTwo minutes: Introduction by a TeacherFifteen minutes: Mulla Nasrudin Literacy ShowTwenty-two minutes: Sesame StreetFifteen minutes: Elementary school level science experimentsFifteen minutes: Afghans Around the WorldFifteen minutes: History of Science, Computers, and Useful EnglishFifteen minutes: HealthFifteen minutes: Open slot. Two minutes: The teacher Two minutes: Mulla NasrudinOne minute: Credits

Total running time: 120 minutes

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One minute: Title, plus any introductory material required.

Two minutes: Introduction by a teacher in traditional school room setting, with a blackboard behind. The teacher will welcome kids and introduce this film or video program as schooling, not to be confused with entertainment. The children will hear from this authoritative figure the rules of schooling, to follow directions, be quiet, etc.

Fifteen minutes: Mulla Nasrudin Literacy Show: This quite comic program will feature Mulla Nasrudin, his donkey, his wife, some children on screen and an audience of children not seen. The Mulla will teach letters and numbers to children in Afghanistan, both those on screen and by addressing those in the audience.

The basic idea will be repeated in numerous scripts and with numerous variations: The Mulla travels on his donkey with saddlebags containing the words, letters, and numbers, which the children need to learn. In various ways he loses the letters or words or numbers, and must search for them, with the help of the children. Mulla Nasrudin is a historic comic figure in Afghan lore, and he is both a teller of jokes, a doer of comic routines, and sometimes the subject of jokes.


The program should be as comic and amusing and interesting as possible to engage the children, and at the same time to teach them their letters and numbers. One word or phrase will be emphasized in each episode.

In addition to the direct literacy message, the Mulla will deliver one message per episode about a virtue proclaimed in Islamic ethics, such as: charity, cleanliness, respect for elders, etc.

The donkey may talk in Dari or Pashto, or make donkey sounds, or be silent. The wife of the Mulla will be portrayed as literate, wise, and a warm helper for the Mulla in his teaching of the children. The children will be around 6 years old, and there will be two or three boys in one group, and two or three girls in a separate group.

In addition to the words in his saddlebags, the Mulla in some episodes may display and utilize the two books which he also carries, one being the Koran and the other “The Big Book of Everything Else.” The Big Book will have an alphabetical index, to teach the children that with the magic of letters, they can find out any kind of information they may desire, and have access to everything in the world, from A for airplanes to Z for zoo animals.

This Mulla Nasrudin series was conceived by MTSA, and is a totally new series. The scripts for it are not yet written. A script contest has just been announced, seeking to have scripts written by a variety of persons, to fulfill the need for 240 scripts for the 240 individual daily programs.

Twenty-two minutes: Sesame Street: Another comic segment will follow Mulla Nasrudin, in the familiar Sesame Street format. These episodes, numbering approximately 230, were produced in Egypt with Arabic letters and language, although with the concurrence of the original Sesame Street Workshop. These segments are being obtained by Sesame Street Workshop, which is located in New York, and will be dubbed into Pashto and Dari, in Afghanistan. The cost is expected to be approximately $500.00 per episode. These Sesame Street episodes we will incorporate into our daily programming. We have a tentative commitment that this will be possible without the usual license fees.

In the tradition of Sesame Street Workshop Productions, they will be extremely helpful to teach young children about colors, shapes, music, counting and time, as well as directly teaching them the alphabet and words. Sesame Street episodes also usually include lessons on general good behavior for children, such as cooperation, tidiness, etc.

The availability of these episodes is extremely fortuitous, as they will already have been tested for acceptance in an Islamic country, and as the use of Arabic letters is the same or very similar for Dari and Pashto.

Fifteen minutes: Elementary school level science experiments: Under the supervision of Camilla Berry, a California teacher of science and consultant on the teaching of science at the elementary school level, a series of episodes will be created to explain how things work and grow, observation, trial and error and other elementary science and pre-science concepts. Each of the experiments will be done by a teacher on screen, perhaps with children on screen, but will use only such materials as children in the rural areas of Afghanistan could themselves obtain, such as a stone and a board to study levers, or a series of seeds to explore how seeds germinate, or a pan of boiling water to study steam. In this science segment, literacy will also be taught, particularly the numbers but also one word per episode, so that the basic objective of literacy for the children will be furthered in each segment. This segment will not be comic, but hopefully will be interesting and fun, so as to keep the children's interest.


Scripts for this segment are already in the planning stage, with an initial pilot and an outline for the first ten episodes already being worked upon.

Fifteen minutes: Afghans in Afghanistan and Around the World. This 15 minute segment will begin with the story of Afghans traveling within Afghanistan, to show the geography of the country and some of its history. Then it will follow Afghan children traveling abroad and use this as an opportunity to teach about the geography and interconnected ecology of other parts of the world.

Literacy will have a role in these segments also, particularly in trying to teach how to read and write the place names of Afghanistan and the major cities.

Scripts for this segment are in the planning stage.

Fifteen minutes: History of Science, Computers, and Useful English. This segment will attempt to answer the question: how do we solve problems? First we guess, then we use trial and error, then we count, then we write down the answer. It will emphasize some of the most important Islamic contributions to science, particularly in the middle ages, including the creation of the concept of a symbol representing zero. From this will particularly come the notion of counting, and counting machines, such as the abacus, the ten key adding machine, and eventually, the computer.

The basic elements of the computer, using zero and one as its counting device, and all that the computer represents from that very basic beginning, will be taught.

English words will be taught to give the children an opportunity to know some of the English words they will need to operate computers.

Literacy will also be advanced in this segment, by focusing on the written version of the numbers, and on at least one word or set of letters.

The scripts for this segment have not yet been begun, as they need to be coordinated with the science experiment segment.

Fifteen minutes: Health. This segment will offer information for children on nutrition, exercise, brushing teeth, boiling water, washing cups, and other elements of daily living, as well as attempt to address psychological issues for children in a war zone.

It will address literacy by choosing one word that is relevant to these elements and focusing on it.

This segment will also deal with children and adults with disabilities, particularly amputees, and try to convey the message that discrimination against these children and adults is wrong and should not occur.

Scripts for this segment have not been outlined yet, and we are looking for a group of medical, psychological and environmental experts who would like to take on this project.

Fifteen minutes: Open slot. This segment is still open, because we hope that there are already in existence appropriate and useable children's programs (although we have not yet been able to find any with some preliminary research). The existence of such programming, however, we hope will yet appear, whether from Egypt or Iran or other Islamic countries. Without creating a whole new series, we could dub programs into Dari and Pashto and find them suitable.


Two minutes : The teacher returns in order to give a closing to the activities of the day, not a summary of the lessons but a repeat of the expectations -- that the children will have listened carefully, and that they will practice writing the things which they learned in the day's program either before they go back to their homes or at their homes in the evening.

Two minutes : Mulla Nasrudin returns for the last 2 minutes, with some kind of comic antic and to remind the children to come back the next time for the next program.

One minute : Credits . With the mountains of Afghanistan and perhaps a departing Mulla in the background, the credits will run for one minute at the end.

Total running time: 120 minutes.

The following are notes to the above:

1. The order in which these segments are presented is flexible and perhaps should be changed, for example, Mulla Nasrudin should perhaps go first and the teacher introduction second at the beginning.

2. We have attempted to move from the simplest to the more complex in the programming, because we think that perhaps we may lose the youngest children's interest toward the end of the two hours. One possibility is to move the Health segment to the middle and start it off with an exercise component of five or seven minutes.

3. We have made a strong effort to have a literacy component in every segment and to emphasize and coordinate it. To this end the plan is to use the 288 pages of the text book of the Afghanistan Ministry of Education, Department of Functional Literacy, which was recently published, available to guide the segments of the 240 daily programs. Correlating the Master Teachers video programs with this textbook is very important to the success of this program, among other reasons because it will permit children who have completed the video course to apply for certification of their education so as to allow them to transfer to a regular school when a school becomes available to them.

End, rev. 061223

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Attachment I. Contest for Mulla Nasrudin scripts


Announces a

SCRIPT CONTESTcalling for 15 minute scripts for the

Mulla Nasrudin Literacy Show

In Dari, Pashto, English or German,Submit all contest entries to:

[email protected]

Master Teachers by Satellite for Afghanistan is seeking to supply by satellite television in Afghanistan an elementary school and literacy education, kindergarten through third grade, for every little girl, and little boy, who does not have access to a regular school, and also to provide literacy for adults who desire it.

The Mulla Nasrudin Literacy Show will be an integral part of the two hours per day (6 days a week, 40 weeks a year) of the satellite programming, in both Dari and Pashto.

Must be as comic as the original: The real Mulla Nasrudin lived during the Middle Ages in Afghanistan and Central Asia, a wandering comic figure with his undersized donkey, both making jokes and being the subject of jokes, returning always to his beloved wife in his rural village. He appears in innumerable comic fables, known to all Afghans. The script can include sight gags, jokes, slapstick, rhymes, short unaccompanied song, etc., designed to appeal to children, 5 to 8 years old, and where possible, to be interesting to their older family members also. Nothing sexy, obscene, violent, discriminatory, or cruel should be included.

The basic script outline: As Mulla Nasrudin travels around in Afghanistan with his donkey and his wife, his saddle bags contain all of the letters and numbers and words in Dari or Pashto. These fall out of his bags (in various ways), and he teaches them to children, both those he meets on his travels and the children in the TV audience.



Immediate release – Mulla Nasrudin Script Contest -- More info contact: English - Carol Ruth Silver, 800-815-8103 or [email protected] - Wahida Noorzad, 925-600-9991 or [email protected] - [email protected] - Sosan Arman, 714-288-0507 or [email protected]

The characters: The Mulla, a portly senior citizen, with a large turban and beard. His wise wife, about the same age and shape. The donkey, who can be portrayed as talking, or not. The donkey can be a cartoon or a hand puppet, or real. Both the Mulla and his wife can read and write. The children are real and some or all should be off-camera.

The lesson: Each script should focus on teaching no more than 1 to 3 small words and the letters that they contain, plus one of the numbers one through ten. If possible, the script content should be tied to one or two pages from the new literacy text book being distributed in Dari and Pashto by the Minister of Functional Literacy of the Afghanistan Ministry of Education (pages of this book will be posted on the web on 1 October 2006 along with the official contest rules.)

Islamic values: Each script should also include by example one positive Islamic ethical lesson for children, such as giving charity, working hard, finishing the job, helping others, honoring parents, etc.

FIRST PRIZE: Your script WILL be produced and you will be given authors credits along with producer, director and actors, PLUS a round trip economy fare ticket to Kabul, Afghanistan, PLUS the opportunity to have an Internship for 6 months at Ariana Afghanistan Television in California or Afghan Film in Kabul.

SECOND PRIZE: Your script MAY be produced at the option of MTSA, PLUS the opportunity to have an Internship for 6 months at Ariana Afghanistan Television in California or Afghan Film in Kabul. THIRD PRIZE: Your script MAY be produced at the option of MTSA, PLUS the opportunity to have an Internship for 3 months at Ariana Afghanistan Television in California.

Tax deduction: Every submission will be acknowledged and WILL be considered for production. Expenses incurred in creating a script (or a pilot of it on DVD) cannot be reimbursed but can be taken as a tax deduction because Master Teachers by Satellite for Afghanistan is a project of a charity with a Sec. 501(c)(3) tax determination under the Internal Revenue Code.

The contest: The contest runs until 1 December 2006, when the judges will pick first, second and third place winners from all entries submitted by midnight that date. The official contest rules will be posted on the web on 15 October 2006. Decisions of the judges will be final. By submitting a script, the author donates to Master Teachers by Satellite for Afghanistan the ownership of the script, unless other arrangements are made beforehand.

Submission: Entries may be submitted in, Dari, Pashto, German or English, preferably by email to [email protected]. If email is not possible, submit by fax to 415-522-1933 or a hard copy by postal mail to 68 Ramona Av, San Francisco, CA 94103. Be sure to include the authors contact information, including a telephone number. If you submit more than one script, please submit each as a separate entry.







[End]


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