Half of Afghanistan's student population banned from school

You may have seen pictures and news reports floating around the internet showing horrified Afghan teenage girls and their parents, heartbroken due to the fact that they are no longer able to continue their educations past the 6th grade. They have been filmed by significant news networks picking up their bags and being sent home, tears in their eyes and angry with these decisions. I am disgusted that until the decision is revoked, these poor girls are no longer allowed to go to school and become educated like their male counterparts.

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Thankfully, protests have erupted around the Taliban’s Ministry of Education in Kabul, with hundreds of women and girls shouting that education is their right and that they won’t accept that the doors of girls’ schools are closed. Women’s rights organizations in the country have said that if the schools aren’t opened up within one week, they will stage more and more protests around the country. In a statement released by women’s rights activists, they said the government should be building new schools to educate girls, not stop them from attending the ones that already exist. I am surprised that this protest was allowed to be run to fruition as the Taliban had banned previous protests of this nature and broken them up and sent them home.?

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To give a little background to those who don’t know the history, the government had previously allowed females to go on with their educations as long as they were in female classrooms, separate from males, and only taught by female instructors. However, this decision was said to be suddenly overruled, hours after schools reopened for older females, by the central leaders until they could find an “Islamic” way for this level of education to go on for them.

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Older females have been out of school for almost a year, first due to the Covid-19 pandemic and fearing the spread of the virus, when the decision to reopen their classrooms came out from the central government. It was truly heartbreaking to me that females interviewed by news outlets were so excited to be going back that some of them “didn’t sleep” out of utter joy that they would be going to school the next morning. It’s important to note that this decision has not disrupted both female and male primary schools. However, the older females are the ones that have been barred from attending their schools.?

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Such news, in my opinion, should be in the Middle Ages, yet it is happening in the year 2022. I am both shocked and horrified that half of an entire population will lose their right to be educated, to learn, grow and to flourish into well-rounded individuals who can reach their dreams through a good education.

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Even though the previous Afghan government had been condemned and criticized for many decisions, those who had been watching the situation like myself were happy to see that they had made much progress when it came to women’s rights and equal rights to education. For example, nearly 10 million children in 2020 had gone to school, with around 40 per cent of them being of the female gender. This was a significant leap when compared to the 1 million boys who were allowed to attend school in 2001.?

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I am truly hopeful that the Afghan central government body will revoke this decision and that girls will be allowed to go back to their schools. I have read many news sources saying that international organizations are disgusted and outraged because of this decision. Still, I worry about them making any decision to punish the rash Taliban government, as Afghan central authorities will punish only the innocent girls if they decide to backlash against them.?

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I passionately believe that equal access to education is a human right, and without offering young Afghan girls this access, inequality is in play. In my humble opinion, I think this decision was made because the Taliban government is really afraid of empowering women and having them grow up as educated individuals, who may try to overturn them one day. The all-male government considers itself highly conservative and preserving the morality of the people but it seems that this toxic masculinity is threatened by the idea of a good education for all.?

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This horrifying situation shows that education is truly a blessing that no one should be forced to live without but that none of us should take for granted. I urge anyone who is able to speak out about this to do so that we can create some noise about the fact that education truly is a right that we should all have. The decision must be reversed to allow girls back into school to pursue their education and reach their dreams. It must not be allowed to happen again in a modern world where education should be a right for all.?

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