Problems and possibilities of sovereignty and statehood in Afghanistan’s higher education strategic planning

• In Event: Remapping State/Education Relations in the Context of North-South Epistemologies

Proposal

Afghanistan’s higher education sector has been experiencing sustained and massive growth since 2001. According to the World Bank, the national gross enrolment ratio for higher education has jumped from 1.257% in 2003 to 8.663% in 2016. The first round of strategic planning to guide the higher education sector covered the five-year period 2010-2014, and a second strategic plan is currently being negotiated. Both of these policies are pivotal in steering the ongoing expansion of a key institution within Afghanistan. Each of these policies have also been heavily influenced by extra-state actors. I examine the first strategic plan and a current draft of the second to ask: what kind of institution do these plans project; and for whose state? I draw upon interviews with key policy authors, consultants, donors, and Ministry officials to explore problematic tensions of sovereignty and statehood within these plans; this augments data from document analysis of the policies themselves. I argue that whilst the relationship between the Afghan state and its institution of higher education is complex and problematic, and must consider extra-state actors and agendas, these same tensions might also present possibilities within Afghanistan’s ongoing state building project.

Author

• Daniel Couch, University of Auckland