KABUL (Pajhwok Afghan News ) – Japan pledged $25 mln for the construction of school buildings in three provinces of Afghanistan, an official said. With financial assistance of $24 million over the past four years from Japan, 51 schools had been constructed, acknowledged Education Minister Ghulam Farooq Wardak, who thanked Tokyo for offering new aid.

Japanese Ambassador Hiroshi Takahashi signed another grant agreement with Wardak for the construction of 75 more schools over the next three years in Bamyan, Daikundi and Ghor provinces.

With the construction of the school buildings, education facilities would be provided for more than 450,000 students in the provinces, Wardak said.

Addressing a ceremony, the ambassador praised the projects completed as a huge success and hoped the next scheme would yield even better results.

Japan has implemented a total of $4.8 bln of assistance since 2001. In July 2012 at the Tokyo Conference on Afghanistan, Japan announced that it would “provide up to around $3 bln of assistance to Afghanistan in about 5 years from 2012 in the fields of socio-economic development and enhancement of security capacity.” At the present moment, a total of $1.46 bln of assistance has been implemented.

In the field of Education, Japan’s Assistance in Afghanistan (JICA) has achieved the following projects:

• Construction or restoration of over 820 schools (including 121 schools in corporation with UNICEF), thus supporting more than 0.8 mln students
• Training of 10,000 teachers and the development of teaching materials by JICA
• Construction/development of 15 vocational training centres
• Improvement of Quality of Basic Education through Application of Child Friendly Schools Approach in corporation with UNICEF
• Literacy education for 10,000 adults by JICA, and literacy education for 600,000 adults through UNESCO (ongoing).