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KABUL – A Taliban official stated on Thursday that Afghan girls of all ages are now permitted to attend religious schools, traditionally exclusive to boys. The announcement follows remarks from U.N. special envoy Roza Otunbayeva, who noted “more and more anecdotal evidence” suggesting girls could study in Islamic schools, known as madrassas.
However, concerns linger regarding the definition of a madrassa, the presence of a standardized curriculum for modern education subjects, and the extent of girls’ enrollment in these schools, according to Otunbayeva. The Taliban, previously criticized globally for restricting girls and women from education beyond the sixth grade, have positioned madrassas as one of the limited options for post-sixth-grade education for girls.
Mansour Ahmad, a spokesperson at the Education Ministry in Kabul, clarified that government-controlled madrassas impose no age restrictions on girls. The sole requirement is for girls to be in a class suitable for their age, with Ahmad emphasizing adherence to principles similar to conventional schools. He further noted that privately run madrassas have no age restrictions, allowing females of all ages, including adults, to pursue education.
With approximately 20,000 madrassas in Afghanistan, of which 13,500 are government-controlled, the details on the current enrollment of girls, especially after the previous bans, remain unspecified. Otunbayeva addressed the Security Council on the one-year anniversary of the Taliban’s prohibition on women attending universities, making Afghanistan the sole country globally with restrictions on female education.
As questions persist about the potential lifting of restrictions and the Taliban’s approach to aligning campuses with their interpretation of Islamic law, higher education officials in Kabul were unavailable for comment on Thursday. Last December, Afghanistan’s higher education minister, Nida Mohammed Nadim, justified the university ban as necessary to prevent gender mixing and align with what he perceived as Islamic principles.
