[Afghanistan’s new government is
likely to severely restrict education for girls and women despite the Taliban’s
claims that schooling will eventually resume.]
By Victor J. Blue and David Zucchino
“They say, ‘You should send a male
representative,’” the director, Aqila, said inside the Sayed Ul-Shuhada High
School, which was shattered in May by a terrorist
bombing that killed scores of girls.
But Aqila and other Afghan
educators don’t need to attend meetings to comprehend the harsh new reality of
education under Taliban rule. The emerging government has made clear that it
intends to severely restrict the educational freedoms enjoyed by many women and
girls the past 20 years.
The only question is just how
draconian the new system will be, and what type of Islamic-based education will
be imposed on both boys and girls. Just as they did when they ruled most of
Afghanistan in the late 1990s, the Taliban seem intent on ruling not strictly
by decree, but by inference and intimidation.
When schools reopened Saturday for
grades seven through 12, only male students were told to report for their
studies. The Taliban said nothing about girls in those grades, so they stayed
home, their families anxious and uncertain about their future. Both boys and
girls in grades one through six have been attending schools, with students
segregated by gender in the higher three grades.
When the Taliban were in charge
from 1996 to 2001, they barred women and girls from school. After the U.S.-led
invasion toppled Taliban rule in late 2001, female students began attending
schools and universities as opportunities blossomed. Women were able to study
for careers in business and government, and in professions such as medicine and
law.
By 2018, the female literacy rate
in Afghanistan reached 30 percent, according to a new UNESCO
report.
But the Taliban swept back into
Kabul and seized power on Aug. 15, and since then they have said they will
impose their severe interpretation of Shariah law.
The new government has said that
some form of education for girls and women will be permitted, but those
parameters have not been clearly defined by Taliban officials.
The Taliban also have indicated
that men will no longer be permitted to teach girls or women, exacerbating an
already severe teacher shortage. This, combined with constraints in paying
teachers’ salaries and the cutoff of international aid, could have “immediate
and serious” outcomes for education in Afghanistan, the UNESCO report warned.
Female students will be required to
wear an “Islamic hijab,” but with the definition left open to interpretation.
At a pro-Taliban women’s gathering last week, many women wore niqabs, a garment
that covers a woman’s hair, nose and mouth, leaving only the eyes exposed.
“We are working on a mechanism to
provide transportation and other facilities that are required for a safer and
better educational environment,” Zabihullah Mujahid, Taliban spokesman and the
acting deputy minister of information and culture, said Monday, adding that
classes for girls in grades seven and above would resume soon.
“There are countries in the region
that have committed to help us in our education sector,” he said. “This will
help us in providing better education to everyone.”
While many girls and women in Kabul
have embraced Western standards of women’s rights and opportunities,
Afghanistan remains a deeply conservative society. In the countryside, even if
all women do not necessarily welcome Taliban rule, many are accustomed to
customs that kept them at home to cook, clean and raise children even before
the Taliban took power in the 1990s.
The acting minister of higher
education last week said that women could continue to study in universities and
graduate programs, as long they were in gender-segregated classrooms, but on
Friday, the new government sent an ominous signal of its intentions. The
Ministry of Women’s Affairs compound was converted into offices
for the religious morality police, who brutally enforced the militants’
interpretation of Shariah law two decades ago. The building now houses the
Ministry of Invitation, Guidance and Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of
Vice.
Female teachers, administrators and
students have been bracing for austere new restrictions. Many say they have
begun wearing niqabs and preparing classrooms to accommodate classes strictly
segregated by gender. (Many schools also taught boys-only and girls-only
classes under the U.S.-backed government.)
“I started wearing the niqab from
the first day of the coming of the Taliban,” said Parisa, who works
at a school in Kabul. She said she did not want to give the Taliban
an excuse to shut down the school entirely.
“We will wear it, but we don’t want
to stop educating,” Parisa said.
The Times is referring to Parisa by
only her first name, and the other teachers and students by nicknames or their
given names, to protect their identities.
Parisa’s attempts to learn details
of the new Taliban curriculum have gone nowhere, she said. She and other
teachers said they had been told only to continue teaching the current
curriculum until the Taliban completes its own version.
“Women are half of our society —
their role is important in all parts of life,” Parisa said. “But the Taliban
are not speaking to women.”
For female students, the sudden end
to their academic freedoms has been both traumatizing and paralyzing. Many say
the joy and anticipation they once felt when entering classrooms has been lost,
replaced by fear and a surpassing sense of futility.
Zayba, 17, survived a
devastating bombing at her school in May, for which no group took
responsibility, though similar attacks have been attributed to the Islamic
State-affiliated group operating in Afghanistan.
Zayba stopped attending school
after the Taliban takeover, which she said had robbed her of all motivation. “I
like to study at home,” she said. “I am trying to, but I cannot, because I
don’t see any future for myself with this regime.”
Sanam, Zayba’s 16-year-old
schoolmate, underwent two operations to repair injuries from shrapnel that tore
into her the day of the bombing.
On Aug. 15, she was taking an exam;
she wants to be a dentist. When she returned home, she learned that the Taliban
had seized political power.
“I thought of the explosion, and I
thought they would come and kill every student,” Sanam said.
She is still in a state of shock.
“I can’t concentrate in my studies,” she said. “When we think about our future,
we can’t see anything.”
When Sanam heard that boys were
returning to school Saturday, she said, she was pleased that her brother was
back in class. She clung to the hope that the Taliban would somehow recognize
the prowess girls and women have exhibited the past two decades.
“If they learn that women can be
part of this country and they can do whatever the men can, then they may allow
us to go to school,” she said.
But for now, even male teachers say
they are anxious and seized by dread.
A teacher at the Sayed Ul-Shuhada
School said 11 of his students were killed in the May 8 bombing. “After the
explosion happened, we lost our self-confidence,” he said. “The students didn’t
have the motivation to go to school.”
Since the Taliban took power,
morale has sunk even lower, said the teacher, whose name is being withheld to
protect his identity.
“The new government says the ladies
and girls cannot work in government, so that’s why they have lost their
motivation,” he said. “If you were them, you would also say this situation is
impossible.”
Mohammad Tariq, an administrator at
a private school in Kabul, said Taliban education officials had told him at
meetings he attended that the new curriculum would include “special subjects”
that teachers will be required to teach. Girls will be taught by women, and
boys by men, he said.
“Change will come in the books, in
the Islamic books,” Mohammad Tariq said. “Certain subjects will be eliminated
for girls: engineering, government studies, cooking, vocational education. The
main subjects will remain.”
Mr. Mujahid, the Taliban spokesman,
denied that any specific subjects would be removed from schools’ curriculum.
For many girls, the end of their
educational freedom also means shutting down their dreams. Zayba, the 12th
grader, said she had planned since childhood to study for a career as a
surgeon.
But last month, she said, her
future seemed to evaporate.
“The day the Taliban took control,
I was thinking: This is the end of life for women,” she said.
