What is considered a school has no building, no library and does not have enough textbooks but pupils, mostly from poor families, come to learn basic education in the "school" located in the suburbs of Bamyan City, capital of Bamyan Province, 130 km west of Afghan capital Kabul.

Hajji Ghulam Ali, headmaster of the Zargaran Primary School, said in an interview with Xinhua that he is encouraged by the patience and the interest of the children to learn.

While making of the school, Ali, 45, said that the only assets of the Zargaran Primary School are the tattered tents where the children sit on the mud.

Bamyan has become famous all over the world after the Taliban dynamited the statue of Buddha carved from a cave. It was said to be the world's tallest.

Ali said that the pupils brave the chilly weather during winter and the heat during summer just to learn from their teachers.

The "school" has no desk or table for the teachers. The teachers would keep on standing while teaching.

Both the teachers and pupils religiously attend classes regardless of the weather outside.

According to Ali, more than 300 boys and girls are attending classes in this unique school in two shifts, morning and afternoon. He said that throughout Bamyan, there are some 100 schools in the open or inside tents like this school.

A popular tourist destination in the past and the most peaceful Afghan province at present, Bamyan is slowly recovering from the aftermath of the war against the Taliban.

Authorities in Bamyan said that they are hopeful that the province can move towards progress by providing education to their inhabitants.

"We firmly believe that education is the key to development in society. Based on this theory we are doing our best to get the Bamyan inhabitants educated without exception, including the young and aged," Mohammad Reza Ada, 40, head of the education department of Bamyan Province, said.

"In 2001 we only had 180 schools in the whole province but today we have 353 schools while our program to build more schools is continuing," Ada added.

Ada admitted that their main problem at present is the lack of funds to build more schools. Because of this, he said, some teachers are forced to hold classes in the open or inside tents.

Some 140,000 children, 46 percent of them girls, go to school in Bamyan, a mountainous province with some 500,000 population, according to Ada.

To get the local people educated, the local authorities have also established literacy courses for the elders and aged women.

"I was an illiterate four months ago but since attending the literacy course I can now write and read the signboards of restaurants, public places and hospitals when I go to the city," Shirin Gul, 45, said.

Since the literacy program for the elderly was started in Bamyan four years ago, some 400 women have already graduated, Kubra Farzam, a literary course teacher said. Endi

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