Taliban To Open High Schools For Girls Next Week, Only Female Teachers For Them

Mumbai: Taliban will allow girls in Afghanistan to return to class when high schools open next week, a Ministry of Education spokesperson said, months after uncertainty over full education access to girls.

“All schools are going to open to all boys and girls,” Aziz Ahmed Ryan of the Ministry of Education told Reuters.

“But there are some conditions for girls,” he said, adding that female students will be taught separately from men and only by female teachers.

In some rural areas where there was a shortage of female teachers, he said older male teachers would be allowed to teach girls.

“There is no school that will close for this year. If there is any school that closes, it is the responsibility of the education ministry to open it,” Rayan added.

Allowing girls and women to attend schools and colleges is one of the major demands the international community has made to the radical Islamist movement since it toppled a Western-backed government last August.

Most countries have so far refused to formally recognize the Taliban, amid concerns about their treatment of girls and women and human rights abuses against ex-servicemen and underprivileged administration officials.

The Taliban have vowed to investigate the alleged abuses and say they do not seek revenge on their former enemies.

The last time the group ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, they banned female education and most employment. Since coming to power, boys and men have returned to education in far greater numbers than girls and women.

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