Afghanistan’s Taliban has announced the closure of universities for women in the country, according to a letter by the higher education minister issued to all government and private universities.
The minister, Neda Mohammad Nadeem on Tuesday wrote, “You all are informed to implement the mentioned order of suspending education of females until further notice.”
The ban on higher education comes less than three months after thousands of girls and women sat for university entrance examinations across the country.
However, restrictions were imposed on the subjects they could study, with veterinary science, engineering, economics and agriculture off limits and journalism severely restricted.
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Recall that, after the Taliban takeover last year, universities introduced gender segregated classrooms and entrances.
Female students could only be taught by women professors or old men.
Responding to the latest ban, one female university student told the BBC she thought the Taliban were scared of women and their power.
“They destroyed the only bridge that could connect me with my future,” she said.
“How can I react? I believe that I could study and change my future or bring the light to my life but they destroyed it.”
Afghanistan’s education sector was badly affected after the Taliban takeover and there has been an exodus of trained academics after the withdrawal of US-led forces last year.
The country’s economy has been largely dependent on foreign aid in recent decades, but aid agencies have partly and in some cases, fully withdrawn support to the education sector.
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Most Afghan teenage girls have already been banned from secondary school education, severely limiting university intake.
The Taliban adhere to an strict version of Islam, with the movement’s supreme leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, and his inner circle of Afghan clerics opposed to modern education, particularly for girls and women.
Women have been pushed out of many government jobs or are being paid a slashed salary to stay at home. They are also barred from travelling without a male relative and must cover up outside the home.
The US and other Western countries have made improvements to female education in Afghanistan a prior condition for the formal recognition of the Taliban government.
Meanwhile, in November, the authorities banned women from parks in the capital Kabul, claiming Islamic laws were not being followed there.
