Need to fundamental Reforms in “Kankor System” of Afghanistan

Abdul Qadir Khamoush, general director of the National Examination Office, on Monday, January 27, 2020, announced at the unveiling ceremony of the Kankor exam guidelines, which biometrically shortened the Kankor of those who – he called the mafias – somehow interfered in the affairs of the Kankor. According to him, no one else will be able to pass the exam for the entrance exam. Following the establishment of the new government led by Hamid Karzai in 2001, attention has also been paid to higher education in the country along with other government agencies. New universities were created and thousands of people were able to get into public and private universities through the entrance exam. However, not only has higher education failed to meet international standards, but it is also lagging behind our neighbors. Although few achievements in the field of education in Afghanistan can be tangible, the quality of higher education in the country is strongly criticized. Although the quality of education is not just about the kankor system, the role of kankor cannot be denied in the low quality of higher education. This analysis has attempted to contact and examine the problems and corrections of the kankor system.

Problems in the Current System

Almost all those who graduate from schools in Afghanistan want to continue their education to higher levels. But it is not possible for everyone to achieve this. In order for school graduates to meet their educational requirements, they either have to go through a filter or have enough money to continue their studies in private universities. Unfortunately, both options are not without serious difficulties in Afghanistan. Going to kankor University for Universities is no less if it does not mean “Seven Readers of Rustam”. One of the problems of high school students is the poor quality of school lessons. It is about this time that the students are preparing for the entrance exam. The low quality of public and private school courses makes it difficult for young people to turn to private courses to prepare for college and incur additional costs. Another problem during high school is the multiplicity of themes, and a student has to read more than 70 volumes of books carefully and carefully in order to be able to pass the filter. While stripping during high school can greatly reduce this problem. The lack of familiarity with the students’ ability to pass the exam and the fear of the exam is another problem that the candidates are facing. Anxiety, in and of itself, lowers the chances of candidates successfully taking the exam. Irregularities and noise pollution in the places where the exam is taken are other problems during the exam. On the day of the exam, the intermediate candidates will be given approximately 160 minutes to answer 160 questions, while where this may be reasonable, while a math question takes at least 10 minutes to complete. One of the other problems that the Kankor system has brought to Afghanistan is that it lacks talent. For example, one has a talent for law and politics when one cannot score a law and political science degree, such as a faculty of literature, which expresses one’s interest and talent at one time. At least somebody might be able to specialize in their non-favorite field. And a number of themes that is studied in schools or in private training courses for passing the entrance exam will not hurt the students after passing the entrance exam and entering the university environment.

Need to Reforms

Because kankor is a national process, it needed an independent office to manage it to prevent systematic abuse of the process. On August 13, 2018, the President of the Republic issued a National Examination Bureau order as an independent body of the Ministry of Education. During the national unity Government (NUG), there were other reforms in the Kankor system that was commendable. One of these reforms is the biometrics of volunteers, which has largely prevented job cheating in kankor. Before that one person could come in and take the exam instead of another. Despite the biometrics of the kankor system, there are still rumors of manipulation of the kankor results, which we hope the respected officials of the kankor National Authority will understand.

Recommendations

Reforms by the national unity government cannot be sufficient to improve the quality of education in Afghanistan, and the Afghan kankor system needs a radical and fundamental change. First, the students of the 9th grade of the school will have to take a mild kankor exam for the students to have a choice at this time, in order to be able to choose their favorite subjects. After graduating (the Ministry of Education will increase its focus on the subjects that would benefit most from the same disciplines), the questions will be arranged in the second entrance exam of the 12th grade students. Most of it comes from the specific themes of the subject. This is useful in two ways, one being that the candidates already know about the kankor exam and the other that their particular knowledge at the university also hurts. The kankor quotas have become a controversial issue in recent years. This rationale may be politically correct, but not only can it helps improve the quality of education in the country, but it can also open the door to corruption and other forms of corruption in Afghan higher education. The best way is for the Afghan government to focus on improving education rather than quotas in areas that offer fewer candidates for the exam. If the entrance exam is as transparent as possible, and the quality of education is not high in the country schools, we will not be able to improve the quality of education in the country. Because the prerequisite for better education is better education. It is therefore necessary to pay more attention to the quality of education and training by public and private institutions in general. Although it has been said that the intervention of the insurgents in kankor has been diminished, they have not yet been fully eliminated, and detailed reports of the intervention of the insurgents and the authorities in the test scene from various regions are being reported. The government must work together with the National process of Enforcement to bring these cruel interventions to zero.

Conclusion

The establishment of the National process of Entrance Examination and the biometrics of the examination system can be good steps towards making the examination more transparent in the country, but it needs further substantive changes to improve its performance. Some of these measures relate to the course of the school, for example, from the ninth grade onwards to students in order to make it easier and more specialized to enter universities. The system of kankor in Afghanistan must be automated so that human will cannot interfere with its results. Instead of quoting kankor, it is necessary for the government to work to improve the education situation in places that are said to be backward. The politicization of the education process can be very dangerous for Afghanistan because it will end the quality of education and serve the ruling system. Improving the quality of school curricula and preventing the bully from interfering in the exam process is crucial for a high quality education.