Parking a link: Afghanistan’s Child Workers

This link is from the Los Angeles Times, but it appeared in today’s (Sunday’s) Chicago Tribune. It describes the labors of Afghanistan’s child workers, though, in reality, two details were surprising:  first, the statement that about 25% of Afghanistan’s children between the ages of 6 and 17 work, is, really, when reversed, more hopeful than I would have expected:  75% of Afghanistan’s children are not employed.  (Can one say that this percentage is in school?  Probably not, as there are probably girls who are neither in school nor working but trapped at home with housework; the statistic probably does not address children who have their schooling limited due to housework or farmwork.)

The other surprise?  That these child-worker children still attempted to attend school, even if part-time.  And one of the children profiled, a 12-year-old boy who works in a metal shop, and attends school for three hours a day, sees a bright future for himself, continuing to study until he finishes high school, and then attending university.  This is really striking.  Is he overly optimistic?  Is the school system so poor that three hours a day is what passes for schooling?  Or — taking the question of university study out of the equation — how much time is, in fact, necessary for an adequate education, able to read, write, and do math competently?