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The hopes and aspirations of over a million Afghan children were kindled yesterday when the Prime Minister of the interim administration of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, declared open the new school year - but despite the delivery of thousands of books and school materials, the vast majority of schools both in the capital and in the interior are crying out for more.Schools like the well-known Habibia Girls' School in Kabul, built with U.S. aid, the Manoochara Girls' School and the Amir Dost Mohammed Khan School, right in the heart of Kabul, have no desks or chairs let alone books and pencils.

Philanthropist Karim Aga Khan, left, and Afghanistan's Interim Prime Minister Hamid Karzai applaud a group of young Afghan girls, who sang and scattered glitter during a ceremony marking the start of the school year, Saturday, March 23, 2002, at Amoni High School in Kabul, Afghanistan. Girls will be allowed to go back to school for the first time in five years, since the fall of the Taliban, who prohibited girls from attending school. (AP Photo/Suzanne Plunkett)

Afghan girls went back to school for the first time in five years on Saturday, elated and emotional at the end of the draconian ban on female education imposed by the former Taliban regime.
In this northern city, small groups of girls were seen treading the path to schools that had been closed by the Taliban when it took power here in 1998.

Afghan girls went back to school for the first time in five years Saturday, elated and emotional at the end of the draconian ban on female education imposed by the now ousted Taliban regime.
Interim Afghan leader Hamid Karzai and the UN's special envoy for Afghanistan Lakhdar Brahimi led a ceremony to celebrate the start of the new school year at the capital's Amani High School.

After years of being turned away at the schoolhouse gates, girls marched proudly at the head of the class Saturday at a ceremony here marking the start of school and the resumption of education for girls as well as boys in this country freeing itself from the Taliban's grim grip.
'A great day for Afghanistan,' declared interim Prime Minister Hamid Karzai after being showered with golden confetti by a choir of gaily dressed female pupils. 'Probably today was the happiest day for me personally here--to see our children go to school and to see them happy.'