AFGHANS STACK BLACK BOARDS IN KABUL CLASSROOM PRIOR TO SCHOOLS OPENING, 2002-03-17 (photo)

Afghan men stack new black boards in a classroom in the Gulam Haidar Khan school in Kabul March 17, 2002. The classroom is already packed with boxes of a new text book, printed by UNICEF, for grades one through three. Finnish soldiers from ISAF arrived this morning with a truck full of new black boards for Kabul school rooms in advance of the March 23 opening of public schools for Afghan school children, who return to their classrooms after six years of Taliban rule when girls under nine received no formal schooling and strict Islamic dogma was taught taking precedence over subjects like maths and science. REUTERS/Jim Hollander JWH/AA