By: Sherin Yousfi
The Taliban have ordered all private educational centers in Kabul to hold separate classes for boys and girls, imposing their latest gender segregation rules, which may deprive more female students from getting education, sources said.
Mohammad Idrees, a manager for a language learning center in west Kabul, said the Taliban’s decision, which was taken last week, may lead many private educational institutions to bankruptcy.
Idress said he is thinking of closing his center for good because he cannot afford to divide boys and girls of the same grade into two different classes and hire two teachers for the same number of students.
“The fees that students are paying can hardly cover electricity bills, and salaries of teachers and guards,” he said. “The Taliban’s restriction has made me think about the closure of the center because we don’t have the resources to separate boys and girls classrooms.”
There are few girls in most classrooms, according to Idrees, and it isn’t economically affordable to “hire a teacher for a class with two girls studying there.”
Female students and activists said imposing gender segregation on private educational centers is just yet another attempt to restrict girl’s access to education.
Zahra, 25, who studies TOEFL prep, at TOEFL House in Kabul, said she and other female students were told on Wednesday that girls should change the time of their classes. She said she cannot do that because she works during the day.
“When I have time to study, the center doesn’t have a class for me,” she said. “In reality, the Taliban want to restrict everyone’s (women’s) access to education.”
Millions of schoolgirls are already out of school due to the Taliban’s ban on secondary education for girls. The Taliban also imposed gender segregation rules on universities and recreational parks after they took power one year ago.
The latest restrictive regulation has a specially negative impact on girls of secondary education who are already barred from going to school, and some of them study at private tuition centers to continue their education.
Maryam, a 15-year-old girl, said she was shocked when she heard about gender segregation in private educational institutions.
“I am worried the Taliban will ban girls from going to tuition centers too,” she said, And if that happens “I will have to stay home full time.”
The manager of a university prep tutoring center also in west Kabul, who spoke on the condition we don’t use his name, said there are curtains in the middle of the classrooms separating boys and girls, but apparently that is good enough for the Taliban.
“The Taliban have warned us to close the gates of our centers if they find boys and girls studying in the same classroom,” he said. “They are inspecting tuition centers in each district one by one.”
Nasiba Mohammadi, a women’s rights activist in Kabul, said Taliban’s restrictive policies impact female students more than male ones.
“By imposing these restrictions, the Taliban are showing that they are against women’s progress and education.
Being this group in the power in Afghanistan it means killing the right of women and educations in Afghanistan they are all against the education against the human rights.
They are harmful for the people of Afghanistan the world must know about the rule of this group (un)and international community must care of it