Afghanistan’s Taliban-run Afghan higher education ministry has said that female students would not be allowed access to the country’s universities until further notice.” You all are informed to immediately implement the mentioned order of suspending education of females until further notice,” said a letter issued on Tuesday to all government and private universities, signed by the Minister for Higher Education, Neda Mohammad Nadeem. The decision was announced after a meeting of the Taliban government. It marked a further blow to the rights of girls and women under its rule. The ban on higher education comes less than three months after thousands of girls and women sat university entrance exams across the country, with many aspiring to choose teaching and medicine as future careers. Most teenage girls across the country have already been suspended from secondary school education, severely limiting university intake.
In a U-turn, the Taliban in March blocked girls from returning to secondary schools on the morning they were supposed to reopen. Several Taliban officials say the secondary education ban is only temporary, but they have also wheeled out a litany of excuses for the closure — from a lack of funds to time needed to remodel the syllabus along what they consider to be Islamic lines.
