In Afghanistan, the Taliban has banned girls' education, leaving thousands of classrooms empty
KABUL: Before the Taliban suspended secondary education for girls, some of Salma's friends attended her school in Kabul with her older sisters. But after the ban was imposed about three years ago, they stopped attending classes.
“They didn't want to come alone. It's sad to lose my friends,” Salma, now in fifth grade, told Arab News.
She also remembers going to the old girls' classroom on the second floor with her friends – which she no longer does because the level has been emptied since the ban. It reminds the 12-year-old girl of the future that lies ahead for her.
“It hurts even more to think that even after two years, we will not be able to come to our school. We graduate after class six and then there is no future for us,” she said.
Since September 2021 – a month after the Taliban took control of Afghanistan – girls have been banned from attending secondary school, resulting in around 1.1 million girls being denied access to formal education and thousands of classrooms and buildings left empty.
Girls' schools are active only up to the sixth standard. The rest of the classes – grades seven through 12 – are not being used,” an official from Afghanistan's Ministry of Education told Arab News. “The rest of the buildings are non-functional.”
Afghanistan had officially recognized about 20,000 schools as of August 2022, of which only half were functional buildings and about 5,000 were damaged after the war, according to data from the Ministry of Education. Meanwhile, according to official estimates, there were about four thousand secondary and high schools for girls in the country before the ban on education.
Najla Ahmadzai, a public school teacher in Kabul, said classrooms and buildings that once housed older girls are now empty, instead being used to accommodate more girls in lower grades.
“Earlier, we did not have enough space to admit many girl students. We had a very low penetration rate. Now that we have more space, we can enroll more girls, especially in grades one to three,” she told Arab News, adding that unused spaces could bring about “positive change”.
But even then, the empty classrooms formerly used by girls in upper grades “makes my heart ache,” she said.
“It is painful and unbelievable for me as a teacher and a mother. I think about my own daughters but also about the daughters of the country. They have the right to education and deserve to be part of society.”
The abandoned buildings are a painful reminder of what was taken from girls like Bibi Laila, 16, one of those not allowed to go to school.
“Instead of using the buildings to educate girls, especially older girls, they are empty and turned into horrible places because no one has been there for the past three years,” Laila said.
“We have schools, we have buildings, we have teachers, books and everything. We can go to school from tomorrow. But the (Taliban) policy has prevented me and thousands of other girls from becoming educated and achieving our dreams and hopes.”
Neither appeals at home nor international pressure on the Taliban administration have helped lift the ban, which officials have repeatedly called an “internal matter.” The ban was later extended to universities, preventing more than 100,000 female students from completing their degrees.
“If we don't go back to school, we're becoming uneducated,” Laila said. “We are very sad but we can't do anything. I think the people of the country and the world are forgetting us.
