I would also like to thank these boys and girls for the beautiful song which they have just sung. I would like to congratulate you, President Karzai, and Minister Qanooni, for the hard work that has been done last year and for the much harder work that is being [done] for the coming year and many, many years to come.

Last year you remember we were speaking about one million seven hundred thousand children going back to school. At the end we had three million three hundred thousand children who were in school last year. We are expecting one million two hundred thousand more children joining school this year. But like last year, by the end of the year there will be many, many more children in school.

Minister Qanooni has given you an impressive list of accomplishments of last year and also an even more impressive list of things that need to be done this coming year. But many of these children are going to school under tents, many of these children have no tables, no chairs, no blackboard, no learning aid that are necessities for them to really learn and become responsible citizens, men and women of this country. I hope that we in the international community will increase our support for the education system in Afghanistan. I hope that we will increase this support to allow the achievement of the aim of Minister Qanooni who said that we want a roof over every school, a table and a chair and a book for every kid.

We in the United Nations are doing our best and I hope we will be doing more through UNICEF and UNESCO who are working with Minister Qanooni and all the institutions of learning and of education in the country to help the girls and boys of this country to receive the education they deserve.

Carol Bellamy, the head of UNICEF, was with us last year. She wanted also to be with us this year, unfortunately she has not been able to get here because of the war in Iraq.

Some very, very unacceptable events have taken place in the field of education from time to time in the course of last year. And we hope that it will not be repeated this year. I’m referring to the schools, girls’ schools mainly, that have been burnt and destroyed in some parts of the country. Neither the religion of Afghanistan, nor the culture, nor any tradition and certainly not the tradition of Jihad allows something like this to happen. The people who do things like this are the enemies of the people of Afghanistan and the enemies of their religion and of their culture. I call on all the people of Afghanistan to unite against these destructive elements who are certainly not serving any needs or any objectives or any principles that the people of Afghanistan recognize as their own.

Once again on behalf of the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, on behalf of the heads of UNESCO and UNICEF in particular and all the United Nations family, on behalf also of your brothers and sisters, Afghans and foreigners who work for the United Nations in Afghanistan, I would like to congratulate you Mr. President, and you Mr. Minister, the teachers, the students and all the family of the [inaudible] in Afghanistan on this occasion and wish you a very, very happy Nawruz and New Year.