Dr Farooq Wardak interview with aljazeera

 Despite opposition to girls education, the man leading Afghanistan's education system insists he is making progress.

 Afghanistan is a country ravaged by war, poverty and internal conflict, but there is one success story the country likes to point out, its education system. 

Since the Taliban was driven from power in 2001, the Afghan education ministry says the number of students have risen by nearly 110 percent. 

Female literacy, once non-existant under the Taliban, is now said to have tripled with 42 percent of girls enrolled in schools across the country. 

But the quality of education provided is questionable, with many teachers themselves not having received formal training, corruption within the education system is endemic. And many children in rural areas still controlled by the Taliban are unable to attend school. At times, cultural and religious sensitivities are also an obstacle to quality education.

Al Jazeera recently visited a school in which a male teacher was ensconced in a box while teaching his class of female students.

With all these challenges facing him, Education Minister Ghulam Farooq Wardak, who recently attended the Educate a Child summit in Doha  has nevertheless promised universal access to primary schooling for all Afghan children by 2020.