In Afghanistan, the Taliban's ban on girls' education leaves thousands of classrooms empty
KABUL: Before the Taliban suspended secondary education for girls, some of Salma's friends had attended her school in Kabul with their older sisters. But after the ban was imposed nearly three years ago, they stopped attending classes altogether.
“They didn't want to come alone. It's sad to lose my friends,” Salma, who is now in fifth grade, told Arab News.
She also recalled visiting the older girls' classrooms on the second floor with her friends back then — something she no longer does because the level has been empty since the ban. It reminded the 12-year-old girl of the future ahead of her.
“It's even more upsetting to think that we won't be able to come to our school after two years. We will graduate after sixth grade and then there will be no future for us after that,” she said.
Since September 2021, a month after the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, girls have been banned from secondary school, denying an estimated 1.1 million girls access to formal education and leaving thousands of classroom and empty buildings.
“Girls' schools are active only up to the 6th grade. The rest of the grades – seventh to twelfth grade – are not… not being used,” an official from the Afghan Ministry of Education told Arab News. “The remaining buildings are defunct.”
As of August 2022, Afghanistan officially recognized about 20,000 schools, of which only about half had functional buildings and about 5,000 were damaged after the war, Education Ministry data showed. Meanwhile, according to official estimates, there were approximately 4,000 girls' middle and high schools in the country before the ban on education was imposed.
With classrooms and buildings that once housed older girls now empty, they could be used to house more girls in the lower grades, said Najla Ahmadzai, a public school teacher in Kabul.
“Previously, we didn't have enough space to receive more students. We had very low admission rates. Now that we have more space, we can admit more girls, especially in grades one to three,” she told Arab News, adding that the unused spaces can bring “positive change”.
But even then, the empty classrooms previously used by upperclassmen girls “pain my heart,” she said.
“It's painful and unbelievable for me as a teacher and as a mother. I think of my own daughters but also of the country's daughters. They have the right to an education and deserve to be part of society.”
The abandoned buildings are painful reminders of what was taken from girls like Bibi Laila, who, at 16, is among those not allowed to go to school.
“Instead of using the buildings to educate the girls, especially the older girls, they are just empty and turning into scary spaces because no one has gone there for the past three years,” said Laila.
“We have schools, we have buildings, we have teachers, books and everything. We can go to school starting tomorrow. But (the Taliban's) policy is stopping me and thousands of other girls from getting an education and fulfilling our dreams and hopes.”
Neither domestic appeals nor international pressure on the Taliban administration helped lift the ban, which authorities have repeatedly said is an “internal matter”. Later, the ban was extended to universities, with more than 100,000 female students being blocked from completing their degrees.
“If we don't go back to school, we become illiterate,” Laila said. “We are very sad, but there is nothing we can do. I think people in the country and in the world are forgetting us.”
