KABUL -- Due to the efforts of tribal and community leaders, more than 200 schools have reopened in Afghanistan recently, many of them in the country's volatile southern region.
Afghan Education Ministry spokesman Mohammad Asif Nang told RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan on April 29 that in the past year some 11,000 schools have reopened despite more than 200 school-related terrorist attacks.
The violence has scared many from attending school -- some 5 million children are not going to school for various reasons, according to an Education Ministry report -- and taken the lives of a number of students and teachers.
Nang said the ministry is also addressing textbook shortages by buying 30 million new books for the next academic year.