Jalalabad: Afghanistan’s public universities on Wednesday opened for the first time since the Taliban took over the country last year, with female students joining their male counterparts heading back to campus.
A Reuters witness in the eastern city of Jalalabad saw female students entering via a separate door at Nangarhar University, one of the large government universities opening this week.
Under its previous rule from 1996 to 2001, the Taliban had barred women and girls from education. The group says it has changed since resuming power on August 15 as foreign forces withdrew, but has been vague on its plans and high school-aged girls in many provinces have still not been allowed to return to school. Some private universities have reopened, but in many cases female students have not been able to return to class.
The international community has made education of girls and women a key part of its demands as the Taliban seek more foreign aid and the unfreezing of overseas assets.
The United Nations late on Tuesday praised the inclusion of female students at the country’s public universities, appearing to indicate official confirmation.
“[The] UN welcomes the announcement that public universities will begin re-opening 2 February to all female and male students. So crucial that every young person has equal access to education,” the U.N.’s mission to Afghanistan said in a Tweet late on Tuesday.
An education official who asked not be named because he was not authorised to speak to media said universities had been given different options to keep female students isolated, including separated classes and staggered operating hours to divide the genders.
Khalil Ahmad Bihsudwal, the head of Nangarhar University, told Reuters male and female students at the institution would attend separate classes, a practice already in place in many provinces.
Only universities in warmer provinces opened on Wednesday.
Tertiary institutions in colder areas, including Kabul, are due to resume on February 26.
“It’s a moment of joy for us that our classes have started,” said Zarlashta Haqmal, who studies law and political science at Nangarhar University.
“But we are still worried that the Taliban might stop them,” she told AFP.
Officials said universities in Laghman, Nangarhar, Kandahar, Nimroz, Farah and Helmand provinces opened on Wednesday.
More were scheduled to resume operations elsewhere in the country later this month.
An AFP correspondent saw just six women - wearing the all-covering burqa - enter Laghman University early on Wednesday.
A female medical student at Nangarhar University who asked not be named for security reasons said that classes had already been separated by gender, but it was not clear if they were still able to be taught by male lecturers or interact outside the classroom with male students.
"Only our studying shifts are separated, although we have been told not to walk around the university until the boys' time is complete," she said.
"Despite all the changes and conditions, I still want to continue because my education should not be incomplete," she added.
The international community has made education of girls and women a key part of its demands as the Taliban seek more foreign aid and the unfreezing of overseas assets.
Aid groups have raised the alarm that the stalled financial system and a stark drop in foreign funding that used to form the backbone of the economy are creating a humanitarian catastrophe in the country, already battered by decades of war.
The United Nations late on Tuesday praised the inclusion of female students at public universities, appearing to indicate official confirmation.
"Let's all support the return of Afghan young female and male students to the universities across Afghanistan," the UN's Secretary General's Special Envoy for Afghanistan, Deborah Lyons, added in a Tweet.
"Supporters can consider a range of scholarship programs and ongoing support to female and male professors," she said.
Taliban fighters guarded the entrance, a tripod-mounted machine gun resting on a boom gate.
One employee said classes would be segregated, with women taught in the mornings and men in the afternoon.
The Taliban have said they have no objection to education for women, but want classes to be segregated and the curriculum based on Islamic principles.
Wednesday’s reopening of some universities comes a week after a Taliban delegation held talks with Western officials in Norway, where they were pressed on improving the rights of women to unlock billions of dollars in seized assets and frozen foreign aid.
The halting of aid has triggered a humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, which has already been devastated by decades of war.
No country has yet recognised the new Taliban regime, which has promised a softer version of the harsh rule that characterised their first stint in power.
The regime has imposed several restrictions on women that have seen them banned from many government jobs.
The Taliban say all girls’ schools will reopen by the end of March.
