The National Examination Authority controlled by the Taliban announces Sulaiman from Herat as the highest scorer (355.4 out of 360) in the university entrance exam (Kankor) on Saturday, November 5, while girls scored the top in the past two consecutive years.
Shamsia Alizada and Selgai Baran from Kabul secured the top at Kankor in 2020 and 2021, but there are no girls among the top 10 this year.
Mohammad Shabir son of Nazir Hussain with 355.3 marks, Hedayatullah son of Abdulmanan with 354 marks, and Mohammad Zia son of Nawruz with 353.9 marks was ranked second to fourth respectively.
Sulaiman and Hedayatullah have been admitted to the Faculty of Medical Medicine in Herat and Mohammad Shabir has succeeded to the Faculty of Medicine of Kabul University.
According to the National Examination Authority, more than 106,000 male and female candidates participated in this year’s national entrance exam, of which 86,000 were successful.
After the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban in mid-August last year, they did not allow girls to go to secondary school, but girls who had already graduated high school were allowed to participate in the examination.
A few days before the Kankor examination, a deadly suicide bomb targeted Kaaj tuition center in Shia-Hazara neighborhood of west Kabul, which left more than 50 girls killed and more than 100 others wounded.
.They were all preparing for the university entrance exam with very high motivation
Despite girls’ participation in Kankor, the Taliban de facto administration reduced female students’ options at university. They barred them from choosing the fields of journalism, engineering, veterinary, agriculture, and mining.
