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BBC World Service launches “Dars” – the first multi-platform education series for Afghan children barred from school

3rd April 2023
The series is to be delivered via the new BBC News Afghanistan satellite channel.
Aalia Farzan rehearsing the programme. Credit: Robert Timothy/BBC

This article was originally published on the BBC and is republished with permission.


BBC World Service is launching the first series of an education programme for young audiences in Afghanistan. From Saturday 1 April, the new BBC News Afghanistan satellite channel will broadcast Dars (“Lesson”) – a TV and radio series in Pashto and Dari, to bring learning to children not at school, including girls aged over 11 barred from formal education. The series will also be available via BBC News Pashto and BBC News Dari radio, BBC Persian TV broadcasts, and online.

The programme’s commissioning editor, BBC World Service News Controller Fiona Crack comments: “As the global public service broadcaster, it felt only right that BBC World Service stepped in to adapt and use the BBC’s world-leading education content, as well as our journalism, to help children excluded from school, particularly girls. We want to offer a topical, learning-based programme in Afghan homes, and we hope Dars will inform and inspire its young audience.”

The presenters of Dars – the BBC’s Shazia Haya and Malaika Ahmadzai (in Pashto), and Aalia Farzan and Sahar Rahimi (in Dari) – fled Afghanistan, following the country’s takeover by the Taliban.

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Shazia Haya says: “When I am working on this programme, I picture myself as a 16-year-old, and I wish there was a TV programme such as Dars back then… I hope that, as they study with the help of our programme, they also learn that they should not give up on education.”

Aalia Farzan adds: “Sometimes I ask myself, if I were a teenage girl in a country where I can’t go to school, wouldn’t I be very happy if someone helped me, if someone came and taught me? It’s such a privilege for me to be able, through Dars, to encourage people to choose their own life. I want to help them believe that one day you can choose what you are going to be.”

“As the global public service broadcaster, it felt only right that BBC World Service stepped in to adapt and use the BBC’s world-leading education content, as well as our journalism, to help children excluded from school, particularly girls.” — Fiona Crack, BBC World Service News Controller

Presenters: Sahar Rahimi, Shazia Haya, Aalia Farzan, Malaika Ahmadzai. Credit: Robert Timothy/BBC

Tailored for 11 to 16-year-olds, Dars makes the most of the BBC’s teaching content with adapted maths, history, science, and Information and Communications Technology modules from BBC Bitesize, the BBC’s online study support resource for UK school-age pupils. BBC Learning English lessons will be split into two sections, for lower- and higher-stage learning. Dars will also bring its young audience current-affairs and inspirational stories from BBC World Service’s multilingual global content and from the World Service’s 100 Women series.

The first 12-week series of Dars will air four times a day, Saturday to Friday, on the newly launched BBC News Afghanistan channel. The half-hour programme will also be available via BBC News Pashto and BBC News Dari Facebook channels, on radio – through the network of BBC FM transmitters in Afghanistan as well as on shortwave and medium wave – and will be part of the BBC Persian TV channel schedule.

BBC News Pashto reaches a weekly audience of 8.3 million in Afghanistan while the weekly reach of BBC News Dari in the country is 4.3 million (BBC Global Audience Measure 2022).

The BBC News Afghanistan satellite channel brings together BBC World Service’s multilingual offer for Afghanistan, with BBC News Pashto, BBC News Dari, and BBC News Uzbek TV and radio content as well as the BBC Persian TV programming.