Officials from United States Agency for International Development (USAID) on Thursday said the agency, within the framework “Promote Scholar Program” and in joint venture with Women in Economy (WIE), is offering medical education scholarships to help Afghan women.
According to USAID this will help women further their studies in the medical sector and help deal with the shortage of female medical workers.
USAID also said the program was launched in joint cooperation with a number of institutes and private hospitals in Kabul, and that the program will be expanded to Kandahar, Herat and Balkh provinces.
Meanwhile, a number of graduates who completed their education under the Promote program have said the program not only helped improve their skills but also helped them secure jobs.
On Thursday, at least fourteen graduates who studied in the Doppler ultrasound field graduated in Kabul where they stressed the need for the program to be expanded to more regions across Afghanistan.
“We live in a society where citizens go abroad due to the lack of expertise in the Doppler ultrasound field, so this program is basically a solution to remove the problem,” said one Promote graduate Sharifa Nazari.
“Millions of dollars flows out of Afghanistan due to the lack of resources and our patients go abroad for treatment, therefore the Women in The Economy project and Promote Program have stepped up efforts to make some contributions in the medical field so that doctors can get professional training,” said Mirwais Sahra, technical deputy head of Women in Economy.
Meanwhile, officials from the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) have said that Afghanistan is still among the ten countries in the world where the outbreak of contagious diseases is high.
They said that launching of such programs could help to upgrade the skills of medical workers to help diagnose diseases correctly and know what treatment to dispense.
“Government and the private sector should carry out practical work in the country to resolve healthcare issues and there is a need for more coordination between them,” said Sayed Haseeb, head of the department of non-infectious diseases at the ministry of public health.
According to officials from Promote, more than 880 female graduates have completed their education under the program since 2015 with the majority of them now working at 200 health centers in 34 provinces.
This comes at a time that access to higher education for women in Afghanistan has been challenging. It is even harder for professional women in the workforce to obtain higher degrees or additional certificates.
The Promote professional certification program helps Afghan women obtain internationally recognized certificates that broaden their employment opportunities in both the public and private sectors.