KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Schools in Kandahar that were built or renovated on the Canadian government's dime have far fewer students than official enrolment numbers suggest, a Canadian Press investigation has found.
Unaccompanied visits to the schools where work has been completed lay bare the stark contrast between what appears on paper and the reality on the ground.
The government of Kandahar's school registry lists many thousands more students than there actually are in the classrooms of Canadian-funded schools across the province.
The findings call into question the efficacy of one of the Conservative government's legacy projects in southern Afghanistan.
Building, expanding or renovating 50 schools in Kandahar province is one of three so-called "signature projects" the Conservatives announced in the spring of 2008 in hopes of providing an additional measure of benefit to Canada's mission in Afghanistan, which is slated to end combat operations in July.
But despite those efforts, there are clear signs that the vision of more Afghan children in school -- particularly girls, whose rights and privileges were non-existent under Taliban rule -- has not come to fruition.
Indeed, the Afghan government's enrolment numbers are overblown, and there appears to have been limited effort by Canadian officials in Kandahar to verify them. There are thousands fewer girls in school than the books show.
Kandahar's Department of Education says more than 52,000 students are enrolled in the completed Canadian signature schools. About half are boys and half are girls.
But according the numbers provided by principals during visits to the schools, about 36,000 students are enrolled in classes -- some 16,000 less than the department has on its books. About two-thirds are boys; the rest are girls.
Head counts revealed fewer students still. The Canadian Press counted some 19,000 students -- most of them boys -- during a week's worth of visits. That's 33,000 fewer than the Afghan government claims.
Those findings are based on visits to all but a handful of the 29 Canadian-funded schools where work has been completed in the past 2 1/2 years. The remaining schools are nearly done.
The Afghan government's numbers are meant to illustrate capacity, not how many are actually in class, argues the Canadian International Development Agency, the arm of government at the forefront of aid projects in Afghanistan.
"The government of Canada commitment in 2008 was to increase the access to and quality of education services," CIDA spokesman Adam Sweet said in an email.
"Increasing the number of students who are regularly at school requires longer-term efforts and improvements in the general security, cultural and economic environments that affect a family's decision to send their children to school."
It's hard to tell how Canada's money was spent in some of the schools. While some buildings look like new, many others are in disrepair.
There are two Canadian-funded schools in Kandahar city's gated Aino Mina housing development, an upscale neighbourhood by Afghan standards where trees line paved roads and high walls protect every house.
There were no girls at Shaheed Jamaluddin school, identified by the Afghan government as a school for girls. Young boys filled just two of the school's 22 unlit classrooms. The hallways were dark and empty, the walls cracked, the floors pockmarked.
The school's principal, Wahiduddullah, who like many Afghans goes by only one name, was not shy about gesturing to cracks in the walls.
Another school in the neighbourhood, Shaheed Sardar Mohammad Dawood, had no students in it. With nothing to do, four teachers in their early twenties sat in the principal's office sipping sweet chai tea and eating small cakes. It was quiet in the room, but children could be heard playing in the streets beyond the school's fenced front yard.
The school had only eight classrooms. Despite a lack of students, three tents adorned with the UNICEF logo stood in the yard behind the school to provide additional -- albeit unused -- class space.
The school was built just one year ago, but already the cement walls are pitted and cracked. Tattered newspapers are taped to the window panes, giving the rooms the yellowish tint of an old photograph. The principal, Shafiurehaman Omerzai, lamented the shoddy work of Afghan contractors.
Across town at Malali High School, there's a painting on a wall of a teacher grabbing a student by the hair and smacking him with a stick as another man, presumably the principal, looks on. Scrawled above the picture is a message in Pashto reminding teachers not to beat their students.
CIDA said it is now looking into how Canada's school money was spent.
"We take this matter very seriously," Sweet said, "and we will be following up to ensure that all contractual obligations have been met."
It took a full month to find out which schools got money from the Canadian government. Canadian officials at the provincial reconstruction team in Kandahar would not furnish a list or locations of the signature schools.
The officials first claimed that identifying the schools would put the students at risk. When pressed, they said it was up to Kandahar's Department of Education to identify school projects paid for by Canadian taxpayers.
In the end, The Canadian Press obtained a list of schools in Kandahar from the province's education department. Canadian officials agreed to identify the schools on the list that were built or refurbished with Canadian money.
It took another visit to Kandahar's education department to get addresses for the 29 Canadian schools completed so far. Most of those schools are in and around Kandahar city. The others are in the outlying districts of Dand, Daman and Spin Boldak.
Six of the 29 schools were in areas of Kandahar deemed too dangerous to visit in person. In those cases, a local reporter spoke to the principals by telephone.
Two of the supposedly completed schools were closed. One in Spin Boldak called Shah Mohammad school shut down because of deteriorating security, according to principal Rohi Muhammad. Another school in the same district, Haji Faiz Mohammad Khan, has yet to even open.
The principals of two more schools in Spin Boldak were too frightened to speak to reporters. And another principal in the area didn't answer his phone.
Principals were asked for the number of students enrolled at their school, the number of boys and girls, how many were in attendance that day, and whether that attendance was typical of most days.
Only three schools had more students than Kandahar's education department claims.
The low student turnout speaks to Afghanistan's continued instability. Even after a decade of fighting, the country remains a dangerous place for foreign troops and Afghan civilians alike. Reports from the United Nations and human-rights groups have noted more suicide attacks, roadside bombings and political assassinations across the country.
Opposition critics in Ottawa acknowledge the threat of violence keeps many kids from going to class. But they also accuse Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government of deliberately keeping Kandahar's true student enrolment numbers under wraps.
"Kandahar is a centre of the conflict, and it's been hard to make as much progress as everyone wants. If a third of kids in school are girls that's still a third more than under the Taliban," Liberal foreign affairs critic Bob Rae acknowledged in an email.
But the survey demonstrates "there's an accountability piece that's clearly missing," Rae said, noting that the information "should be part of our regular updates."
The Conservatives have a "credibility gap in Afghanistan," said New Democrat MP Paul Dewar, the party's foreign affairs critic.
"Signature projects were never the best way of using development funds. But everyone agrees that education is an important component to building a better future for Afghanistan," he said by email.
"Canada has not delivered on our promises and the Conservatives are feeding us erroneous numbers to cover up the facts. It's only going to get worse as the Conservatives cut aid funding to Afghanistan."
International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda, who is responsible for CIDA, did not respond to interview requests.
Kandahar's director of education, Haji Najibullah Amidi, chided the Canadians for what he considered a lack of follow-up on the schools. "They did some school projects in Kandahar, but after that, they don't know if there is anyone in the schools or not," he said through a translator.
Later, in an interview at the provincial reconstruction team's base in Kandahar city, with Canadian officials looking on, Amidi was far more complimentary. But he was critical of the manner in which the schools are funded.
Canadian funds get passed through international bodies such as the World Bank and UNICEF, which in turn transfer the money to the Afghan government. Amidi said the money should be coming directly from Canada.
Canada set aside up to $12 million over the last three years of the mission for the schools project. So far, $9.5 million of that money has been spent on the schools and upgrades to Kandahar's teacher training centre.
The Canadian government does not know the exact cost to build, expand or renovate each school, Sweet said.
"Given that the education initiative is implemented through a number of projects and with the help of many partners, costs for each school may vary," he said.
Moreover, CIDA doesn't actually send staff to visit the schools. The agency relies on the Afghan education department's engineer, as well as a local interpreter working with the provincial reconstruction team, to report on the progress.
"For monitoring purposes, we rely heavily on the engineer, as well as the Department of Education," said Mark Duah, the agency's senior development officer for education, during a recent interview in Kandahar
"Once the school is given, it's not like we give the school and we're hands off. In agreement with the Department of Education, their job is to maintain the schools and provide some feedback and to monitor those things."
In some -- but not all -- cases, District Stabilization Teams made up of U.S. and Canadian personnel also report on the schools. Those teams consist of representatives from the U.S. State Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development and Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs.
UNICEF and the World Bank also share information.
CIDA has not undertaken a similar head count at Canada's signature schools. Instead, the agency says it "remains primarily focused at this time on its commitment to increase the number of schools and classrooms, while also increasing the quality of education in Afghanistan."
The government's most recent quarterly report to Parliament, tabled in December, listed 26 schools as completed. Three more have been finished since then, bringing the number of finished schools to 29. More schools are almost done.
Canadian officials say all 50 schools will be finished by the summer.
Asked how the rest of the schools can be finished in six months when it took two-and-a-half years to build the first 29, Duah cited better security in Kandahar.
"Security has improved. And security has been one of the inhibitors of getting our schools done," he said.
-- Additional reporting by A.R. Khan in the districts of Dand, Daman and Spin Boldak.
