Thousands of empty classrooms in Afghanistan as Taliban bans girls’ education
KABUL: Before the Taliban banned girls’ secondary education, some of Salma’s friends went to her school in Kabul with her sister. But since the ban was imposed nearly three years ago, they have stopped going to class altogether.
“They didn’t want to come alone. It’s sad to lose your friends,” Salma, now a fifth-grader, told Arab News.
She also recalled visiting the older girls’ classroom on the second floor with her friends at the time. Since the ban, that floor has been empty, so they no longer do that. It was a reminder to the 12-year-old of the future ahead.
“It’s even more upsetting to think that I won’t be able to come to school in two years. I’ll finish sixth grade and graduate, and then I’ll have no future,” she said.
Since September 2021, a month after the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, girls have been banned from secondary school, leaving an estimated 1.1 million girls without access to formal education and thousands of classrooms and buildings empty.
“The girls’ school only operates up to the sixth grade. The remaining classes (from seventh to 12th grade) are … not in use,” an Afghan education ministry official told Arab News. “The remaining buildings are not in use.”
As of August 2022, Afghanistan had officially recognized about 20,000 schools, but only about half of them had functional buildings and about 5,000 were damaged after the war, according to education ministry data. Meanwhile, there were about 4,000 secondary and high schools for girls across the country before the ban on education, according to official estimates.
Nazla Ahmadzai, a public school teacher in Kabul, said classrooms and buildings that once housed older girls now sit empty and could be used to house more girls in younger grades.
“Previously, we didn’t have enough space to accommodate more girls. The enrolment rate was very low. Now that we have more space, we can accommodate more girls, especially in the first to third grades,” she told Arab News, adding that the unused space could bring about “positive change.”
But even then, she said, seeing empty classrooms occupied by high school girls “was heartbreaking.”
“As a teacher and a mother, it's painful and unbelievable for me. I think about my daughters, but I also think about the daughters of the country. They have the right to education and to be part of society.”
The abandoned buildings are a painful reminder of what has been taken away from girls like Bibi Laila, who at the age of 16 is unable to attend school.
“Instead of using the building to educate girls, especially the older girls, it has become an empty and scary space because no one has been there for the past three years,” Laila said.
“We have schools, we have buildings, we have teachers, we have books, we have everything. We can go to school tomorrow. But (Taliban) policies are preventing me and thousands of other girls from getting an education and achieving their dreams and hopes.”
Domestic appeals and international pressure on the Taliban administration did nothing to lift the ban, which authorities repeatedly called an “internal matter.” The ban was later extended to universities, leaving more than 100,000 female students without a degree.
“If we don't go back to school, we will be illiterate,” said Laila. “We are very sad, but there is nothing we can do. I think people in this country and around the world have forgotten us.”
