The Taliban-run higher education ministry in Afghanistan said on Tuesday that females will be denied admission to the country’s higher education institutions until further notice.
A letter certified by a higher education ministry representative urged Afghan private and government universities to immediately ban accessibility to female students in compliance with a cabinet resolution.
The new Taliban limitation on female education is sure to cause unease in the rest of the world, which has yet to acknowledge the de facto rule.
Foreign nations, particularly the United States, have emphasized that before fully recognizing the Taliban-run state, there must be reforms for women’s education in the country.
The university restrictions were confirmed on the same evening as a UN Security Council session on Afghanistan, during which the United Nations secretary general’s representative for Afghanistan, Roza Otunbayeva, stated that the shutdown of schools had “undermined” the Taliban government’s correlation with the international community.
She declared that as long as girls are barred from attending school and the de facto government persists to ignore other expressed international community concerns, the UN will be at odds with the Taliban administration.
The decision was made while many university students were finishing up their final examinations. One mother of a university student, who did not want to be identified for security concerns, claimed her daughter contacted her in tears when she found out about the letter. She expressed concerns that she would be unable to continue her medical studies in Kabul. The mother revealed that many parents of university students are anxious and afraid in this regard.
