Mohammad Mashouq Safi and Wahidullah Azizi
In June 2018, Integrity Watch provided training to four hundred student volunteers in Kapisa and Parwan provinces on the methods of promoting transparency and integrity through monitoring of their schools’ operations.
In 2017, Integrity Watch facilitated a community monitoring program in nine schools in Kapisa province where volunteers were supervised on weekly basis by Integrity Watch local staff in their efforts to monitor school operations. Since Integrity Watch moved to new schools in 2018, it created Integrity Clubs, a group of ten students in each school to continue the same monitoring with little or no supervision by Integrity Watch.
Designed for efficiency and engaging students to look after their school where they study, Abdul Zahoor Hakim, a schoolmaster in Parwan said, “there is need to have more Integrity Groups across the province’s school.”
The students will continue monitoring of schools’ operations including monitoring of potable water, hygiene of toilets, student and teacher attendance, availability of books and others. The clubs will be monitored and assisted through Integrity Leaders who are trained and experienced community volunteers having worked with Integrity Watch for many months. The new members of the clubs promised to monitor their schools and try to find solutions to the problems faced by the students.
Shkiba, a student of 9th grade and a member of Integrity Club expressed her appreciation of the initiative and said, “Integrity Clubs are very helpful when it comes to solving the problems of our school.” The clubs also provide students an opportunity to be role models, she added.
Integrity Watch started its Community-Based Monitoring of Schools (CBM-S) program in July 2014 to bring more coordination between public and education departments. The program is running in Kapisa, Parwan, Balkh, Nangarhar, Herat, and Bamiyan. In 2017 alone, management of 90 Integrity Clubs was handed over to schools. Through the clubs and monitoring of more than 250 schools in the mentioned provinces, 1905 problems were solved out of 2702.
