Education minister Atsuko Toyama said Friday that her counterpart in the Afghan interim authority, Abdul Rasoul Amin, will visit Japan beginning Tuesday.
Amin will be here for a four-day visit and hold separate talks with Toyama and Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. Amin will also visit Ochanomizu University and Chiba University.
Amin is also to meet with Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi and visit facilities offering correspondence courses through such media as the Internet, TV and radio.
"The government is interested in exchanging views on educational cooperation with Afghanistan," Daisuke Matsunaga, assistant press secretary at the Foreign Ministry, said. "Taking advantage of this opportunity, we would like to promote (such) cooperation with the Afghan interim authority in its nation-building efforts."
Toyama said, meanwhile, that during her meeting with Amin she will recommend that Japan dispatch its own education experts to Afghanistan and that Afghan female teachers be sent to Japan to receive training.
Toyama said she also wants to offer her support for a program to eradicate illiteracy.
Amin's visit is at the invitation of the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry.
Japan has pledged to give Afghanistan $500 million over the first 30 months of its reconstruction. The pledge was made in January during an international donor conference in Tokyo.