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The Society for Love and Justice
School for Afganistan

I can’t do this alone. I need you to dream with me, to struggle with me, to feel in your heart the inevitability of our success, and contribute your creativity and resources to giving Afghan children the education they so desperately need.

Please email me at farrishassan@aol.com to let me know you’re interested in supporting this project, and put in the email subject line: “website, school project, support”

Thank you.

 

Summary
The current secondary school system in Afghanistan lacks academic rigor and does not have an adequate venue for gifted students. So most brilliant Afghan students, whose genius would normally have them in schools like Harvard, Amherst, MIT, or Yale, find themselves only able to attend local Afghan universities, where their potential is once again stifled.

We want to build an elite, internationally competitive, college preparatory school in Afghanistan that will give Afghan students an education equal to what students receive in elite prep schools in the United States. The goal is to send graduating students to top American universities, where they will study to become the future, progressive leaders of Afghanistan.

The curriculum of The Academy will match the advanced level of academics at elite college preparatory schools in the USA. As is common at such schools and nearly expected by top universities, students at The Academy will graduate having taken two years of college level material. That means during 11th and 12th grade, they will take college level Calculus, English Literature, Persian Literature, Chemistry, Biology, Physics, and several college level social science courses. Currently students graduating Afghanistan’s public schools barely study mathematics, science, and language up to the American 12th grade level of depth. So it will be a great leap forward for The Academy to provide a program that will essentially educate students to the 12th grade level by the 10th grade, and then have them study college level courses for the 11th and 12th grade.

The Academy will follow the International Baccalaureate program. Therefore students will graduate with an International Baccalaureate Diploma, which has high standing and automatic accreditation to nearly every major university in the world.

Students will enter The Academy only in the 7th grade so that in 7th and 8th grade all gaps from their previous education will be filled, and they will receive a solid foundation in all the basic mathematic, English, Persian, science, and social science skills necessary for the advanced high school work. Except Persian class, from 9th through 12th grade all classes will be conducted in English.

The Academy will be a boarding school. Students, teachers, and staff will live on campus. To start, there will be a faculty house, a student house, a recreational facility, and the main academic building. In the recreational building will be computers, a study room, a music room, and a television with very specific channels that are almost all educational and in English (History Channel International, Science Channel, Discover Channel, BBC, an Afghan news channel, a Middle-Eastern news channel, etc.)

Students at The Academy will take up to 8 courses during the Fall-Spring term, and then up to 3 courses during the required Summer terms.

Each grade will have 20 students. The Academy will start with only a 7th grade class; when they move on to 8th grade, a new 7th grade class of 20 students will enter.

The core of The Academy’s teachers will come from professors of Kabul University and Americans (most likely of Afghan or Persian descent) who are college graduates and have previous teaching experience.

Students will take the core classes of English, Persian, Math, Science, and Social Science every Fall-Spring term. English will be studied in summers as well. Outside the core will be courses in fields such as music, art, ethics, philosophy, study of religion, etc. The Academy will place a major emphasis on the development of students’ appreciation of the arts. In 7th grade all students will begin learning music and how to play an instrument. The Academy will work hard to develop a skilled orchestra, with violins, violas, cellos, basses, wind instruments, and percussion.

Students will have a community service obligation to fulfill each year. They will also be encouraged to start their own independent community service projects in Afghanistan, for that will develop their skills in leadership, planning, creativity, and independent thought and action.

 

Admission Policy: The Academy will sift through Afghanistan’s 34 provinces to recruit the 20 most brilliant students we can find. We will go to a high school and ask the principal—who is the most gifted student in your school, the one who surprises you on a daily basis with their intellectual energy, their academic performance, and their sheer desire to learn and advance themselves. We will examine those top students and choose the cream of the crop, regardless of their economic or ethnic background.

Access to a first-rate education is a right of all people, even if they are not wealthy or well connected. It is essential that children from families of lower socio-economic status make it into elite institutions of higher education, because such is the primary agent of social mobility. Therefore The Academy will be tuition free and make accessibility a priority. Public and private donations will provide the funding for our school.

 

Mission
The mission of The Academy is
     -to provide an unsurpassed academic experience that will prepare students to reach their full potential and to be able to attend the finest universities in the world
     -to instill a solid ethical foundation, a compassion for humanity, and a commitment to progress in society
     -to instill a strong sense of pride in the Afghan culture and nation, and a lifelong personally involved commitment to improving Afghanistan
     -to cultivate students’ aesthetic sense
     -to develop progressive leaders with an international outlook

 

Curriculum & Academic Program

 

7th Grade

8th Grade

9th Grade

10th Grade

11th Grade

12th Grade

 

Funding
First, The Academy will seek grants from public organizations that already spend millions of dollars each year on rebuilding the infrastructure of Afghanistan: USAID, World Bank, Asian Development Bank, etc.

Second, The Academy will approach the Afghan Ministry of Education and the Presidential Office for sponsorship

Third, The Academy will approach Pine Crest School in Fort Lauderdale and Amherst College for sponsorship.

Fourth, The Academy will reach out to the large network of donors involved in the organization Afghans4Tomorrow, which runs a number of development projects in Afghanistan, including three elementary schools for disadvantaged children.

Fifth, The Academy will seek private donors across America who desire a brighter future for Afghanistan.